


cards we've been dealt

by jrjkim



Category: BLACKPINK (Band)
Genre: F/F, some jennie x mina and mentions of past jenkai
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2019-11-01 03:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17859437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jrjkim/pseuds/jrjkim
Summary: Falling for this girl will be a disaster, Jennie knows, and no one needs that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from ariana grande's ghostin

Jennie comes home 16 years after she leaves it.

She’s been back for summer and Christmas vacations, for holidays, birthdays, and emergencies, but never permanently and never longer than three months.

Until now.

She could tell you a bevy of reasons for coming home: Seolhyun’s accident (which scared Jennie shitless even if the worst injury Seol suffered was a minor concussion); Kwon Jiyong, Jennie’s childhood hero and chief of design of their company, offering to take her under his team; getting sick of New York and its streets; getting sick of trying to fit herself into a city which she loves but which will never be home.

Seoul is home and Jennie is tired of running away from it, of wandering around places which are beautiful but aren’t hers.

So she resigns from her job (which she really doesn’t need to do since she works for her father’s company anyway), packs the important things from her Fifth Avenue apartment, allows her New York friends to throw a going-away party for her, and books a one way ticket to her home city.

A month later she’s back in Seoul, with five large Rimowa suitcases on her new bedroom floor and a clean, finally-organized room and walk-in closet. 

The clock on her bedside table says 2:18 am.

She runs her hand through her already messy hair and tries to ignore the headache she can feel forming between her eyes, no doubt a result of the jetlag from the 14.5-hour flight from New York to Seoul.

She takes in the white walls, the rose-colored linens on the bed, the fresh flowers on the vanity (courtesy of Chahee, Jennie notes with a smile), and lets out an exhausted sigh. 

It’s so different from her brownstone apartment in New York, and Jennie thinks that it’s not so bad.

She plops down on the bed, glad that she brushed her teeth and washed her face an hour ago, and drifts off to a dreamless sleep a few minutes later.

―

She wakes up to the smell of slightly burnt toast and coffee, and for a split second or two she thinks she’s back in her apartment in New York. She half-waits for the sound of cars honking down the street, for Dua to call out that breakfast is ready, for her 7 am alarm to sound off.

She finds Jisoo in her kitchen a few minutes later, wearing a bright pink apron and trying valiantly to salvage what appears to be an omelette. There’s a stack of toast (some look fine, some look burnt, and one looks... very burnt) on one plate and slices of banana bread on another. “Jisoo _unnie_?”

Jisoo greets her with a wide, blinding smile, the one that made everyone throw themselves at her feet, the one that made Jennie desperately want to be her friend when they were five-year old kindergarteners. “Good morning. I knew you were still asleep so let myself in.” Jisoo points to an electric blue key lying on the marble kitchen counter. “I had a spare key made after Nayeon and I made the reservation for the unit.”

Jennie nods because that’s an acceptable explanation as far as Jisoo is concerned and she is making Jennie some breakfast. She pokes Jisoo’s sides and shoos her away from the pan to take over cooking the unfortunate egg. They’re quiet for a few minutes as Jennie finishes cooking and plating the omelette, the silence disturbed only by Jisoo making frustrated noises as she sorts through the stack of toast.

Jennie gets a fork, takes a small bite of the omelette, and immediately spits it out on the sink. “ _Unnie_ , what the fuck. Did you put the whole salt shaker in here?”

“Oh. I think my hand may have slipped a bit,” Jisoo smiles sheepishly. She points at the plate of banana bread. “I made banana bread, though.”

Jennie raises an eyebrow.

Jisoo rolls her eyes and dumps three burnt toasts in the trash. “Fine. I bought them from the bakery downstairs, Miss I-can-make-macarons-from-scratch. They’re really good.” Jisoo gets her coffee and places herself on one of the stools in the breakfast bar. “Anyway, how’s the jetlag?”

“Terrible,” Jennie says as she pours herself some coffee from the coffee maker. At least Jisoo knows how to make coffee. “I was so tired last night but I couldn’t sleep so I unpacked and organized my room and the walk-in. I slept at half past two.”

“You still have that dinner with your father and Seol _unnie_ tonight right?” Jisoo asks, concern lacing her voice.

Jennie nods absently, putting some sugar and cream in her coffee. “Yeah,” she answers shortly.

“You should rest today then,” Jisoo looks at her sympathetically, all too aware of Jennie’s relationship with her father. “We can watch Netflix, you can pass out two episodes into Queer Eye, we can order take out for lunch, I can help you choose what to wear for tonight.”

Jennie smiles and pulls up a bar stool next to Jisoo. “That sounds great.”

Jisoo taps the side of her own cup, leans a bit closer, then pinches Jennie’s cheek. 

“Stop,” Jennie giggles, halfheartedly trying to swat Jisoo’s hand away, and she would be lying if she said this isn’t one of the reasons she came back to Seoul - her best friend annoying her while taking care of her at the same time, giving her that smile that has comforted her since she was five.

They didn’t grow up together, not really, but they are best friends in spite and because of everything and Jennie is grateful - grateful that they grew up but didn’t grow apart, grateful that Jisoo never resented her for not calling more or coming home sooner, grateful that Jisoo seems as grateful as she is for their friendship.

Jisoo stops her assault on Jennie’s cheeks and reaches for a slice of banana bread. “It’s pretty cool that you’re back, Jennie,” she says, her eyes intently focused on her food and stubbornly refusing to meet Jennie’s.

Jennie can’t help but smile. She bumps her and Jisoo’s shoulders together and takes another sip of her coffee. “I missed you too, _unnie._ ”

―

Dinner, as it has always been in the Kim household since Jennie was eight, is awkward.

Jennie spends the night picking at her half-eaten dinner (salmon and asparagus, pretentious food for their pretentious family), grunting out one-word answers to her father’s questions, and ignoring his disappointed glares.

It’s not as if she’s been like this forever. She’s tried once upon a time - tried to what, she’s not sure. To regain her father’s attention, maybe? Regain his approval, his affection? She was a child then, and all she wanted to know was why her father can barely look at her anymore.

She started trying when she was a child who just lost her mother, and her father responded by shipping her off to New Zealand a few months later.

Jennie gave up trying years ago.

The dinner started off fine. Bland, but fine which Jennie thinks is a step up from the shouting matches over the dinner table they’ve had in the past.

Then her dad brings up Jiyong and the design team and then _Jongin_ of all people, and the night only gets worse from there, Seolhyun’s efforts to make decent conversation and ease the tension notwithstanding.

Her father answers a phone call in the middle of dinner and goes back to the office without saying goodbye, and that was that.

Seolhyun finds her later in her childhood bedroom, her feet bare on the soft periwinkle carpet, taking in the stuffed toys on her bed, the deflated netball sitting sad and lonely in one corner, the framed The Lion King Broadway poster on the wall, and the old ballet slippers she recovered from under the bed.

(Jennie remembers, with vivid clarity, ballet recitals with both her parents watching. She remembers her mother’s proud smile, her _appa_ holding a bouquet of flowers as he claps, and them taking her, Jongin, and Mina out for ice cream after).

Seolhyun doesn’t say anything, she’s never forced Jennie to talk, but she holds her little sister like she did when they were children, and Jennie lets her.

―

Jennie calls Mina the next night and greets her a happy birthday. They talk for almost three hours about Seoul and New York and Osaka, about seeing Giselle later that year, about the Gucci scarf Jennie sent as a gift, about Mina’s new video game obsessions, about Jennie’s new job and Mina’s one-year old nephew.

She doesn’t tell Mina about the dinner, doesn’t ask her if she remembers those recitals as well, doesn’t talk about the milk ice creams and pink carnations of their past.

―

Jisoo invites her to a friend’s birthday party that weekend.

“There won’t be that many people,” Jisoo says. “Just Lisa’s close friends.”

“But I’m not her close friend.”

Jisoo shrugs. “You’re my close friend.”

Jennie is reluctant but she says yes anyway and brings a bottle of Dom Pérignon with her, just to be polite.

―

The birthday girl, Lisa, isn’t around the apartment when she and Jisoo get there.

“I think she went out to talk to her mom,” Seulgi, Lisa’s best friend and roommate, says as she puts the champagne Jennie handed over on an ice bucket. 

Jisoo nods and drags Jennie over to the lounge to introduce Jennie to the others.

It’s a whole half an hour later and Jennie has a cat named Leo following her around when a blonde girl walks through the door, windswept and red-cheeked in her denim jacket and black jeans.

“Happy birthday, Lalisa!” Jisoo squeals happily as nearly tackles the blonde girl in a hug.

The girl whines but returns Jisoo’s hug fiercely, allows Jisoo to place a quick peck on her cheek. “Jisoo unnie.”

Jisoo pulls away and drags Lisa to Jennie. “Jennie, this is Lisa the birthday girl. Lisa, this is Jennie, my best friend. She just got here from New York a few days ago”

Jennie holds out her hand. “Happy birthday, Lisa. Nice to meet you.”

Lisa sways a bit but gamely shakes her proffered hand. Her hands are soft but a bit cold from the early spring air, and Jennie notes her glassy, red-rimmed eyes and the poorly-concealed dark circles under them, her brittle smile. There’s a silver flask tucked in her jacket pocket. She is clearly some kind of tipsy and all kinds of brooding, and Jennie is concerned. 

And a bit intrigued if she’s being totally honest. 

No one should be that sad on their birthday.

Lisa’s voice is soft, almost shy. “Thank you, Jennie. And the pleasure’s all mine.”

―

Jennie somehow gets roped into doing body shots with Jisoo and some of Lisa’s other friends, Ten, Jeongyeon, Minnie, and Lucas. Seulgi, Bambam, Taeyong, and Yeri are in the kitchen, embroiled in another intense round of beer pong.

It’s all very sophomore year of college, really, but Jennie supposes it won’t hurt to have a bit of juvenile fun before she starts work on Monday.

Lisa is on the couch, nursing the bottle of beer which is all Seulgi would give her after her third glass of whiskey and coke and her second shot of Jagermeister. She’s quietly observing them with an amused, drunken grin on her face, her fingers loose on the neck of her bottle.

Jennie feels Lisa’s eyes specifically on her at one point, and Jennie doesn’t know if it’s just the alcohol but the attention burns and makes her feel sticky, makes her pull Jeongyeon closer by her bright blue hair as the other girl licks a stripe of salt off her neck.

Jennie laughs when Jeongyeon licks a little longer than she should, and Ten and Jisoo hoot and whistle drunkenly.

When Jennie looks up, Lisa is gone and a half-empty bottle of beer sits abandoned on the table.

―

She stumbles later to the small back porch to get some air, and there, she finds Lisa on a rocking chair, cradling the nearly empty bottle of Dom Pérignon they opened before cutting the cake.

“Oh. Hello,” Jennie greets dumbly.

She has half a mind to just go back inside and leave Lisa alone but other girl grins goofily and waves the bottle rather unsteadily at her. “Hello. I drank the rest of the champagne.”

“I can see that.”

Lisa takes a swig of the bottle, her wide, doe eyes never leaving Jennie’s. A tongue peeks out to catch a stray drop of champagne on Lisa’s bottom lip, and Jennie is too drunk to realize that she should probably not stare.

“Do you want some?”

Jennie shakes her head and it feels like the floor moves underneath her. She clears her throat, steadies herself on the back a wicker chair near the door. “No, thank you. There’s not enough for the both of us and it’s probably not a good idea for me to drink more anyway.”

Lisa chuckles. “Right. Thanks for the excellent champagne by the way.” 

She turns her head a bit, glances down at the phone on her lap, and Jennie is struck by her profile - sharp, pale in the moonlight, and Jennie’s breath catches in her throat.

Jennie blinks once and Lisa is looking at her again.

If Jennie was a lot more sober she would’ve gone inside by now, but she isn’t so she walks over to the vacant seat next to the other girl and ignores her rolling stomach and clammy hands. “Everyone deserves good champagne on their birthday.”

Lisa hums in agreement, tips the bottle back to finish off the champagne, and they sit quietly on that porch for what seems like hours, the only sounds the muffled laughters of Bambam and Yeri, the stern voice of Seulgi as she berates a wholly inebriated Lucas, Lisa’s fingers drumming against the screen of her phone, and, to Jennie’s ears, the quick pitter-patter of her heart in her chest.

―

“Lisa,” Jennie says later as an Uber drives her and Jisoo to her apartment. Jisoo’s head is on her lap and Jennie’s fingers are threaded through her hair. “She’s sad.”

It’s a statement, not a question and Jisoo shifts and looks up at Jennie with a serious look on face. “She’s trying, Jennie,” Jisoo says quietly.

Jennie nods, leans her head on the cool glass of the window, and doesn’t say anything anymore for the rest of the drive home.

―

It’s almost noon when Jennie and Jisoo wake up the next day, both with pounding headaches and smelling of tequila and sweat. They shower, try not to throw up, down some aspirin, order take out they barely eat, and sleep again on the couch a few minutes after Jisoo puts on Mulan.

Junmyeon picks up a grumpy, hungover Jisoo at around two and Jennie spends the rest of the afternoon finishing Mulan, washing her sheets, and sketching some designs which she can show Jiyong.

She gets a message from an unknown number after dinner.

_‘hi jennie. i just wanted to thank you for coming to my party. i got your number from jisoo btw, if you don’t mind. - lisa’_

Jennie smiles, then taps out a reply.

_‘no problem, thank you for having me. i had a lot of fun :)’_

―

It’s almost two weeks after the party and Jennie finds herself outside Jisoo’s door, wanting nothing more than to just to lie back in her best friend’s annoyingly comfortable couch while they eat take out and drink good red wine.

Jiyong has been demanding - great, but demanding and Jennie’s enjoying her work but it’s Friday and she’s exhausted.

She rings the doorbell once, twice, hears footsteps approaching before she can ring it a third time.

The door opens.

Jennie blinks.

“Jennie.”

It’s Lisa standing on the doorway, long blonde hair a bit messy and wearing a forest green turtleneck, jeans, and a pair of those fluffy slippers that Jisoo keeps around her apartment. She looks so warm and comfortable and _attractive_ that it takes Jennie two seconds to find her voice.

“Lisa?”

Lisa gives her a warm smile and opens the door wider for her. “Hey. Come in.”

Jennie does and Dalgom immediately runs to her and greets her with a happy bark. She humors him with a few scratches under his chin and behind his ears, and the way he wags his tail happily makes her think that maybe she should get a dog of her own. “Dalgom, how have you been?”

Lisa laughs beside her. “He missed you, I think.”

“Bet he did.” Jennie smiles as she lets Dalgom trot off back to his food. “Where’s Jisoo?”

Lisa’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “She didn’t tell you?”

Jennie’s answer is a blank stare.

“She went to the hospital. Junmyeon had a basketball accident. She left almost an hour ago and asked me to stay here with Dalgom.”

Jennie reaches for her phone inside her handbag. She ignores all the other messages and calls and opens Jisoo’s text.

“Shit. I completely ignored my phone for hours.”

_‘I’m at Seoul General right now. Junmyeon is an idiot and got injured trying to dunk on Chanyeol lmao’_

She types out a reply asking Jisoo to keep her updated and turns back to Lisa. The other girl has this strange look in her eyes and Jennie forgets what she was about to say.

“Um. I was just about to order some take out before you came. Would you like to stay for dinner?” the blonde girl asks rather shyly. 

Jennie gapes at her.

“Unless you’re busy or have other plans, of course. In which case, feel free to refuse my invitation.”

“No, no,” Jennie says hastily, smiling now. Lisa is adorable. “I’d love to stay for dinner.”

―

They order some take out, open a Pinot Noir, and settle on the sofa with Animal Planet playing on Jisoo’s huge television.

Lisa starts off a bit quiet but quickly warms up to Jennie and tells the other girl stories about her job _(‘I had a magazine shoot in Japan - Jisoo picked me up from the airport this afternoon’)_ and makes her laugh. She laughs too, free and loud and sincere, at Jennie’s poor attempts at humor - this warm, melodic sound that reminds Jennie of bright summer days, that she wants to keep close to her chest for her bad days. She teases Jennie about her job _(‘You designed my phone!’ ‘I didn’t. I’ll design your next phone’)_ , complains about how Leo hates her and tells her about wanting to adopt a new cat.

Jennie tells her about New York - about the Met, and college at Columbia, and Broadway, and how she got food poisoning once from a hotdog stall. Lisa notices her blazer, hanging on the back of the sofa, and they talk about that too _(‘Jesus Christ, that’s a vintage Chanel’)_. She tells her about Srinagar, and Vienna, and Antwerp and Santorini _(‘just this year, for New Year’s - I was alone’)_ , and Paris _(‘my favorite city on earth, Lisa’)_ , her two semesters in London, her summer in Barcelona.

Lisa tells her about Bangkok, and growing up in her father’s restaurants. She tells her about photography and dancing, about her growing collection of cameras and her childhood hip-hop crew.

Her eyes are bright and animated and Jennie can’t stop looking at them, can’t stop looking at _her_.

Lisa is beautiful and Jennie is in trouble.

“I’m sorry, by the way,” Lisa says after they put away all the leftovers. She isn’t looking at Jennie, her eyes focused on the swirl of red wine inside the glass.

Jennie leans back on the sofa with her own glass of wine. It’s both their third glass and Jennie is warm and sleepy. “For what?”

“The party,” Lisa says quietly. “I knew I wasn’t a very good host.”

“It was your birthday. You deserved to get drunk.”

Lisa snorts and looks up. “It wasn’t just that... it was... I don’t know. I was a wet blanket, kinda. I barely talked. Jisoo and Seulgi and the others are used to it by now, but you’re not, so.”

Jennie shakes her head. “No, no. It’s fine. No need to apologize. But, full disclosure, when we were on our way home, I told Jisoo you were sad.”

“You did? What did she say?”

“That you were trying.”

Lisa shrugs, a sad smile on her face. “I guess I am.”

“Why are you sad?” She regrets asking the question as soon as the words leave her mouth. “Shit, sorry. You don’t have to answer that. We barely know each other.”

Lisa empties her glass. “Bad break-up. That was... that was my first birthday without her in years.”

“Oh.”

Jennie downs the rest of her wine as well. “Do you still love them?”

“Yes. I still love her very much.”

Jennie tries not to let that break her heart too much. She barely knows this girl. 

She wishes she had more wine. 

“Oh.” She can’t help herself. “What’s her name?”

“Chaeyoung,” Lisa answers, and it sounds like she’s just getting used to saying her name again.

Jennie looks at her hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Lisa sighs. “Sometimes things just... don’t work out, I guess.”

Jennie nods. Lisa’s phone rings. She stands up.

“I have to take this. It’s Jisoo.”

“Right, of course.”

Lisa goes to the kitchen. Jennie closes her eyes and tries not to think about the conversation she and Lisa just had.

She falls asleep to the sound of Lisa’s voice, soft and soothing, to her light footfalls pacing the kitchen.

―

Jennie wakes up to the door opening. She’s still in the sofa but there’s a blanket thrown over her and a pillow underneath her head. There’s a book on the coffee table that she doesn’t remember being there before she fell asleep.

“Jennie?”

It’s Jisoo. “In here.” Jennie sits up and rubs at her eyes, feeling a slight pounding at her temples.

Jisoo appears at the entrance of the living room, looking tired but otherwise fine. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Jennie answers sleepily. “How’s your boyfriend?”

Jisoo rolls her eyes. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Yet.”

Jisoo clicks her tongue. “He’s an idiot and got himself a sprained knee but he’s fine. The doctor says he’s lucky he didn’t tear his MCL, whatever that is.”

Jennie yawns. “That’s good.”

“Anyway, I heard you had a sleepover,” Jisoo says with an inscrutable look on her face. Jennie doesn’t like it.

“We had dinner. I fell asleep. That’s hardly a sleepover,” Jennie scoffs. “Where is Lisa by the way?”

“She left a few hours ago, I think. She has a shoot this morning.”

“Right,” Jennie nods. “What time is it?”

“Almost eight.”

Jennie reaches for her blazer, now folded neatly on the arm of the sofa, and puts it back on. “Wanna get some breakfast?”

―

Jennie spends almost the entirety of the next three weeks in the office drafting designs, making prototypes, attending meetings, and observing Jiyong. She catches up with her friends (Nayeon, Chahee, and Joohyun mostly), and hangs out with Jisoo or Seolhyun whenever she has the time.

She has dinner with Jongin once. They mostly talk about Mina and it is not the awkward disaster she expected it to be.

She visits her mom and brings a vase of lilies and carnations. She stays for an hour and only thinks of going home when it starts drizzling and she realizes that she didn’t bring an umbrella.

She goes to a bar one Saturday in this beautiful Derek Lam dress she bought on a whim and goes home with a girl. She makes the girl some breakfast the next morning because she has manners and the girl, Minyoung, is perfectly nice. She sends Minyoung off in an Uber, throws away the piece of paper with her number, and barely thinks of Lisa.

―

It’s a Tuesday and Jennie is on her way out of the company’s building to buy some lunch when she sees Lisa sitting on one of the couches in the lobby, busy reading a magazine.

Jennie is still debating whether or not she should say hi when she realizes that her traitorous feet are already leading her where Lisa is seated.

“Lisa?”

The blonde girl looks up from her magazine, her eyes widening when she sees Jennie. She stands up and drops the magazine on the chair. “Jennie, hey! I’ve been waiting for you.”

“You have?”

“Yeah. I have a shoot on the building across the street until this afternoon,” Lisa nods. Jennie notices that other girl has more makeup than usual and her hair is pin-straight instead of its usual wavy. “I know you work here so I went here to wait for you and see if you would like to get some lunch.”

Jennie smirks. “And you didn’t think of texting me instead of waiting here?”

“Well,” Lisa says sheepishly. “I didn’t mind waiting. I wanted to surprise you. Which didn’t work, clearly, because you found me first. I really should’ve texted you beforehand. You don’t have lunch plans, do you?”

Jennie shakes her head. Jiyong is out and Seolhyun has a working lunch with some investors. “No, not really. I was just about to buy some food then have lunch with the team upstairs.”

Lisa grins and offers her arm to Jennie. “Then let’s go?”

―

Lisa takes her to this ramen place twenty minutes away. She lets Lisa tell her about the shoot (for an up-and-coming local urban wear brand), about her new camera, about going to a friend’s friend house next week to pick up her new kitten.

“I’m still thinking of a name,” Lisa smiles. She pushes her almost-empty ramen bowl away and rolls her chopsticks between her thumb and forefinger. “Probably something that starts with ‘L’ too.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

“Boy.”

Jennie thinks for a second. “Lionel.”

Lisa shakes her head. “Too close to Leo. I don’t want it to have an inferiority complex.”

Jennie laughs. “Lawrence?”

“No. That’s not a name for a cat.”

“Lincoln? Lancelot? Link?”

“No to all three.”

“Lisa Junior.”

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” Lisa scoffs.

Jennie smiles and finishes the last of her iced tea. “Logan? Ludwig? Lannister? Lucius?” she suggests.

Lisa laughs and shakes her head. “I am not naming my kitten after a Death Eater.”

“How about Lennie? It’s like... Jennie. But with an L.”

Lisa raises an eyebrow. “I see that. Interesting suggestion but...I’m gonna have to say no.”

Jennie lets out an annoyed huff. Lisa giggles.

“Lucky?” Jennie tries again.

“Hmm, no.”

“Luca.”

Lisa pauses and considers the name for a moment. “Wait. That’s not bad. I like it.”

“See?” Jennie grins. “I’m a genius.”

“Yes, you are.” Lisa motions to the waitress for the check. “Would you like to come with me next week to pick him up?”

―

They spend most of the next few days together – dinner and drinks after work, going to Jisoo’s to play video games (Jennie and Jisoo play, Lisa just kind of watches and cheers for whoever’s winning), shopping for cat beds and toys, bowling with Ten and Seulgi, taking Leo to Jeongyeon who, it turns out, is Leo’s vet.

Jennie ignores the voice in her head telling her that it’s dangerous to spend this much time with someone this attractive and smart and kind and _so emotionally unavailable._

They drive to Namsan that Sunday and spend the afternoon taking pictures and eating yogurt.

“She thought the view was pretty but I thought she was prettier,” Lisa says as she snaps a picture of an unsuspecting Jennie bathed by the sunset.

“Lisa, ew,” Jennie complains, rolling her eyes even if she’s trying not to blush. Lisa just cackles and takes more pictures of her.

Lisa sings Glee songs at full volume on the drive home and Jennie holds herself back: from holding Lisa’s hand over the center console, from inviting her inside when they get to her apartment, from kissing her goodbye.

―

Sometimes, they would pass a certain place, or hear a certain song, or Jennie would say something and Lisa would get quiet and contemplative.

Jennie understands - she understands memories attached to certain things and places, understands mourning what they meant once upon a time.

She doesn’t know if it’s for herself or for Lisa, but her heart breaks all the same.

―

“Jennie, he has your eyes.”

Lisa stares in wonder at the little kitten sitting peacefully in Jennie’s lap. They’re in Lisa and Seulgi’s apartment, driving straight there after picking up Luca in Sinchon-dong. “Look at him. He looks like you. It’s like you birthed him yourself.”

Jennie laughs quietly so as not to startle Lisa’s new cat. “Don’t be ridiculous, Lisa.”

“No, really. He even has your stare,” Lisa insists. “He’s beautiful, Jennie.”

Jennie tries not to think too much about the implications of that statement and points to the other cat sleeping on Lisa’s lap. “Leo might hear you and get jealous.”

Lisa rubs Leo’s head and smiles at the sleeping cat softly. “Leo knows he’s my baby boy.”

“Did you – ” Jennie pauses, wonders if she should ask questions about the woman Lisa is still so obviously hurting over. “Did you get him with your ex?”

“Who, Leo? No. I got him three months after Chaeyoung and I broke up.”

Jennie nods. She scratches Luca behind his ears, marvels at the soft fur there. He purrs and snuggles closer to Jennie’s hand.

“She and I were together for eight years,” Lisa says, still looking at Leo. “Our lives were so intertwined. Even now they still kind of are. Eight years together, that’s... that’s kind of difficult to undo. I got him because I guess I just wanted a part of my life that she hasn’t touched yet.”

Jennie shifts on the couch, careful not to jostle Luca. “Lisa... I’m sorry I asked.”

Lisa looks up. “It’s fine. Please don’t apologize,” Lisa says, putting a hand on Jennie’s knee and giving the other girl a reassuring smile. “I mean, she’s not my favorite subject but I can talk about her. If I was uncomfortable with the question I wouldn’t have answered it or elaborated on it.”

Jennie feels the warmth of Lisa’s hand seeping through her trousers and hates herself for liking it. She hates herself even more when Lisa pulls her hand away and she finds herself missing it. “Okay,” she says as she scoops Luca up and stands, eager to put some distance between her and Lisa to clear her head. “Should we see if Luca likes his new bed?”

―

Jisoo brings her lunch and complains about Junmyeon being a baby, even if Jennie and anyone with eyes can see that she likes babying him. Jennie asks a carefully-worded question about when she and Junmyeon are going to make things official. They’ve been at this will-they, won’t-they stage for a year now (Jennie knows they’ve had crushes on each other since they were teenagers but Jisoo will deny that) and Jennie just wants Jisoo to be in the stable and loving relationship she knows Junmyeon can give her.

Jisoo just brushes her off and basically tells her to mind her own business.

“We’re secure in whatever our relationship is. If it’s enough for us then it has to be enough for the people around us too,” Jisoo says in a tone that dares Jennie to say anything more. Jennie leaves it at that and reaches for another dumpling.

“Hey, by the way, Lisa told me you helped her pick Luca up,” Jisoo says later just as she’s about to leave. 

“Yeah, I did.”

Jennie raises an eyebrow. “You’ve been spending a lot of time together.” Her tone is not disapproving _per se_ , but it irritates Jennie a bit, makes her feel defensive.

“I guess,” Jennie shrugs, trying to be casual, even if she knows Jisoo will see right through her. “Where is this going, _unnie_?”

The older girl sighs. “You’re not dumb, Jennie. Just... be careful, okay?” Jisoo says and leaves before Jennie could say anything else.

―

She ignores Lisa’s texts for the next few days because Jisoo is right. She _should_ be careful and spending so much time with Lisa is decidedly _not_ being careful. She figures Lisa will just think she’s busy.

Jennie knows it’s not fair to the other girl, it’s not her fault Jennie has this stupid, silly, pointless... attraction. But this is the best Jennie can do for now.

She goes out again that Saturday. She wears this tight, Alexander Wang dress she brought over from New York, her favorite Louboutin pumps, the reddest shade of lipstick she owns, and her best Chanel perfume. 

She looks _so good_ and she knows it. She knows everyone knows it.

She heads straight to the bar, ignores the gaggle of people looking at her, and orders an Old Fashioned from the friendly, bright-haired bartender.

A tall brunette approaches her halfway to her second drink. She has this great, melodic voice and big smile that Jennie can’t help but be charmed. They’re on the dance floor a little later and the girl’s hands are all over her when Jennie sees a flash of blonde hair.

She knows it’s not Lisa, the hair length is all wrong and the shoulders aren’t as sharp, but she turns to the tall brunette anyway, kisses her hard and fast, and tells her to bring her home.

―

She wakes up in a strange bed.

The girl is still asleep, her breath hot on Jennie’s nape. She’s not a cuddler, thankfully, and Jennie is able to get up, get dressed, and slip away without any issue.

Her wristwatch says it’s 7:38 am. Her phone is dead.

Lisa is waiting for her on her stoop when she gets home, a brown paper bag and a coffee carrier beside her. 

Jennie’s heart almost thuds out of her chest. Lisa should really stop showing up like this.

She’s obviously been on one of her runs, if her outfit is any indication - a windbreaker over her tank top, neon green shorts, black Flyknits. Her hair is up in a ponytail, and Jennie absently admires the long, elegant column of her neck, glistening in the morning sun with a bit of workout sweat.

“Hey,” Lisa says softly when Jennie approaches. 

“Have you been here long?” Jennie asks.

“Fifteen minutes, probably,” Lisa replies with a shrug. “I tried calling you. I... I was in the area. Running. And I did some lunges while waiting for you. I brought pastries and coffee.”

Lisa doesn’t ask her where she’s been, it’s kind of already obvious, and Jennie doesn't know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, doesn’t know why she feels guilty and embarrassed. It’s not as if Lisa would care.

“I’m sorry, my phone died.” Jennie shifts on her heels and struggles to maintain eye contact.

“It’s okay. You’re here now,” Lisa says, getting up from where she’s seated. She dusts off her shorts and picks up the bag and coffee “Are you going to let me in?”

―

Jennie goes straight to the shower and leaves Lisa puttering about in the kitchen, looking for plates and rummaging through her fridge.

She turns the water as hot as her body can take and lets the heat of it turn her skin pink. She runs the soap all over her body twice, lathers up her loofa and scrubs herself with it twice too.

She thinks she cries but maybe it’s just the water from the shower.

When she comes out in her bathrobe, Lisa is just finishing cooking some eggs. “Hey. Let’s eat,” she says as she carefully puts scrambled eggs on two plates.

“Sorry I didn’t reply to your texts last week. I was busy,” Jennie says quietly as she pulls up a chair. Lisa slides her a plate and one of the cups from the carrier.

Lisa sits down next to Jennie and grabs her own cup. “Don’t worry about it, I know you’re perpetually inundated with meetings and whatnot,” Lisa says with an understanding smile. Jennie feels even more terrible. “Luca and Leo missed you though.”

Jennie stops herself from asking if Lisa missed her too because she is _not_ a teenager with a high school crush. 

She takes a sip of the coffee - Americano, with two pumps of vanilla and a bit of cream. It’s a bit cold from all that time outside, but she’s gratified to know that Lisa knows her order by now. “I miss them too. I’ll have to visit soon. How are they? How’s Luca adjusting?”

“Good, good,” Lisa says. “They fight sometimes because Luca is annoying and Leo likes his space but they’re practically best friends now. Luca likes curling up next to me when Seulgi and I are watching TV. Leo just... stares at us from afar.”

Jennie smiles at the image. “That’s adorable.”

Lisa regales her with a story about Luca, Leo, and a box, her eyes shining prettily under her bangs, and Jennie tries not to get too caught up in her smile, the sound of her voice, the way she touches Jennie’s robe-clothed knee sometimes as she speaks.

Falling for this girl will be a disaster, Jennie knows, and no one needs that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a kudos and some comments for two blackpink comebacks a year haha


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She likes to pretend that she still has some semblance of control over where all of this is headed.

When Jennie was a child, she used to make bracelets and necklaces for her and Seolhyun’s Barbies using beads and elastic thread that she bought from a store in front of her school. When she got more confident in her skills, she made some friendship bracelets for Seolhyun, Jisoo, and Mina too, and even one for her mother.

(She still has the one she made for her mom, wrapped in a linen handkerchief and hidden in one of the music boxes in her apartment’s guest bedroom. She takes it out from time to time, and smiles at the memory of her mother’s delighted laughter when Jennie first gave it to her).

She expanded later to making dollhouses, using her legos and cutting up boxes she pilfered from the kitchen and the attic and taking out the construction papers, paint, and glue she used for school. She’d spend hours every ballet-free weekend holed up in her room making little bed frames, bathtubs, and closets, with Seolhyun reading from her bed and helping her cut shapes from time to time.

Her mother found her one Sunday, taught her how to carefully use a glue gun, and they spent an afternoon bedazzling an entire cardboard dollhouse with sequins and little plastic hearts and flowers.

It happens very rarely, but she dreams of that afternoon sometimes, all fuzzy purples and muffled laughter, and wakes up disoriented, a phantom pain tingling on her left leg.

―

The board wants a progress report for the new tablet line by the end of May and so the rest of the month goes by in a blur of meetings with suppliers, dinners with foreign partners, arguments with the software team, and more meetings with the legal department for a patent application. Jennie spends a very tense hour lunching with her father which ends up with her walking out of his office.

What little free time Jennie has, she mostly spends with Seolhyun who makes sure she eats properly, doesn’t exceed four cups of coffee a day, and sleeps at least six hours a night.

She gives in once to human frailty and asks Lisa to pick her up from work after a particularly long day. They have dinner at Jennie’s favorite barbecue restaurant and Jennie almost passes out in the middle of eating. Lisa laughs and pulls her closer so she doesn’t tip over the table and feeds her grilled pork belly to keep her awake. The other girl reminds her not to work too much and for the next few weeks, sends her these corny motivational quotes that Jennie pretends to hate (Lisa swears she sends them to make her laugh) and countless pictures and videos of Luca and Leo. Jennie teases Lisa about being an embarrassing cat mom but saves everything Lisa sends anyway. 

If she falls asleep a few times to a video of the cats playing with a stuffed rabbit and Lisa’s laugh in the background, she’ll never admit it.

―

The board presentation goes by without a hitch and Jiyong rents out a whole restaurant to celebrate. The other members of the team, Jiyong included, get absolutely shitfaced. Jennie just finishes the glass of champagne Seunghyun gives her, then quietly slips away.

She takes out her phone and dials a number when she gets into the parking lot. 

Lisa answers on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Hi.” Jennie smiles at the sound of Lisa’s voice. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, really,” Lisa laughs. “I just finished feeding the cats. Seulgi and I are probably going to put a movie on.”

A beat of silence.

“How was your presentation by the way?”

Jennie grips her phone tighter, rubs absently at her slightly twitching left eye. “It went very well.”

“See?” Lisa squeals happily from the other end of the line. “I never doubted you!”

Jennie laughs, this tired, choking sound that she knows Lisa will hear through. “Thank you, Lisa.”

“What’s wrong? Are you crying?” Lisa asks, her voice suddenly worried.

Jennie breathes out, swallows the lump in her throat. She’s being ridiculous, she knows, and she hates herself for it. Exhaustion has always made her emotional.

She wants to say: _“I’m tired and I want to come over. I’m tired and I want to see you. I’m tired and I miss you.”_

Jennie holds her tongue because, historically speaking, what she wants hasn’t always been what’s good for her. “I’m just exhausted, sorry.”

“Are you at home? You should get some rest.” Jennie can practically see the frown in Lisa’s face - the slight pout of her lips, the cute crease between her eyebrows. Jennie has the sudden urge to drive to her place and run her thumb over the crease to smooth it out. She quickly banishes that thought from her mind.

“I’m still at this restaurant with the team,” Jennie replies, a little more composed now. “I’m heading home after I say goodbye to Jiyong and the others.”

“That’s good. Are you okay to drive? Do you want me to pick you up?”

Jennie shakes her head, then realizes Lisa can’t see her. “I’m okay to drive, don’t worry.”

“But... okay. I-” Lisa sighs. “Get some rest, please. I’ll see you soon. Drive safe. Text me when you get home?”

“I will. Good night, Lisa.”

“Good night, Jennie.” 

Jennie hangs up first, gets in her car, allows herself to cry for a good three minutes, then drives home.

―

She brings Lisa breakfast a few days later and drives her somewhere in Hongdae for a shoot because Seulgi borrowed her car for the day to get some stuff from her parent’s place in Ansan. She picks her up after work too and they walk around a park just two blocks away from Lisa’s place, drinking banana milk and eating the large bag of M&M’s that Lisa stole from the shoot.

Jennie’s glad she wore loafers instead of heels.

Lisa is in this black, long-sleeved graphic shirt and black denim shorts, hair curled impeccably and make-up from the shoot still on her face. She looks too pretty for Jennie not to tell her. 

“You’re so pretty,” Jennie blurts out after Lisa tells her a story about Bambam that the Korean girl does not remember a word from. She knows she should feel bad but she can’t find it in herself right now to care, not when Lisa is looking at her with this huge, surprised grin on her face.

“Oh,” Lisa says shyly. “Thank you, Jennie.”

Jennie shrugs and pops a green M&M into her mouth, acting cooler than she actually feels inside. She’s always been good at that, always been good at showing that she cares far less than she actually does. “Sure.”

She wills her hands to stay on her sides and digs her blunt nails into her palms to keep herself from taking Lisa’s hand in hers.

They pass by a fountain as they make their way to the center of the park and Lisa insists that they throw coins and make wishes. Jennie protests on principle, she’s always found making wishes rather silly, but she inevitably gives in and takes the coin Lisa offers her.

Jennie closes her eyes for second, then throws the coin into the water.

“What did you wish for?” Lisa asks after.

 _I wish I wouldn’t want more from you, I wish_ this _could be enough for me._

Jennie shakes her head. “Nuh-uh. If I tell you what it is, it won’t come true.” Lisa just pouts and throws a yellow M&M at her, and Jennie laughs and teases her for being a baby.

They spend the rest of the afternoon playing with the corgis they see chasing each other on the grass and and helping their owner feed them banana slices. They stroll along the rose garden after that and Lisa drifts off to take pictures of the pink and white roses.

“Do you like roses?” Jennie asks as she observes Lisa. She picks up a stray rose petal on the ground and runs her fingers over its velvety texture.

An expression which Jennie can’t quite decipher flits across Lisa’s face for a split-second, and then she’s nodding and smiling again at Jennie. “I do.”

She walks Lisa home a little while later. She keeps a safe distance from Lisa as she says goodbye, says no to her invitation to go inside (she has to get back home and get ready for her dinner with Joohyun anyway), and walks back to her car even before the Thai girl can unlock the door.

―

Lisa posts a picture of the roses on her Instagram later that night. Jennie lets Joohyun pour more wine into her glass and turns off her phone.

―

Jennie, Jisoo, and Nayeon fly to the Im’s house in Jeju one weekend and spend the two days shopping, drinking too-strong cocktails, and talking shit about the guy who just ghosted Nayeon.

Nayeon cries a little over her margarita, bemoans her shitty taste in men, and jokingly wishes she could just like girls instead.

Jennie snorts over her second glass of strawberry daiquiri and playfully nudges Nayeon with her elbow. “Oh, trust me. You don’t want that. Men are a walk in the park compared to women.”

That statement leads to all three of them talking about and comparing their exes: Jinyoung for Jisoo; Jimin, Mark, and Yugyeom for Nayeon; Jongin, Christian, and Kiko for Jennie.

Jisoo asks about Mina after Jennie tells them about Kiko.

“What about her? Mina and I were never together,” Jennie shrugs, because they weren’t. Not really. They talked about trying after that month in Cologne together but then Kiko happened a few weeks later and it was just never the right time for them, even when the whole Kiko saga was over. 

Maybe them never getting the timing right is for the best. Maybe if they tried she would’ve lost Mina by now and Jennie would never want that.

Jisoo narrows her eyes at her best friend. “But Cologne.”

Jennie scoffs. “That doesn’t mean we were ever together. Come on, you know that as well as anyone. Everything was just... messy for us. Besides, Jongin probably would flip if we ever got together.”

“I doubt that, Jongin is decent. But even if he does, girl, fuck him and that ridiculous mullet he somehow makes attractive,” Nayeon says as she refills her glass of margarita. “If you like Mina, then be with her.”

Jennie rolls her eyes. “We’re best friends. I don’t even like her like _that_ anymore.”

Nayeon lets out a slightly drunken, exaggerated gasp. “So do you like someone else now?”

Jennie quickly blinks away the image of the increasingly-familiar brown eyes that immediately came to mind upon Nayeon’s question. She feels Jisoo looking at her, probing and curious, ready to strike. “Never said that,” she answers, eyes looking directly into Nayeon’s. “I don’t like anyone right now.”

―

Three hours and a few more cocktails later, they’re all tangled and squeezed together on Nayeon’s queen-sized bed like the teenagers they were not even ten years ago. Nayeon is already fast asleep, snoring lightly, and one hand fisted around Jennie’s pajama shirt, a sleeping habit she hasn’t outgrown from childhood. Jisoo is on Jennie’s other side, their backs to each other, her arms wrapped around a bolster pillow. Jennie is on the verge of sleep herself when Jisoo suddenly speaks.

“Jennie?” Jisoo asks quietly.

Jennie keeps her eyes closed. “Hmm?”

“Will you promise me two things?”

Jennie groans. “It’s one in the morning, Jisoo. If you let me sleep now, I’ll promise you three things tomorrow.”

“No, no. Just...” Jisoo sighs. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”

Jennie opens her eyes but doesn’t say anything, hoping that Jisoo will just think she fell asleep.

“And promise me you’ll do whatever it is that makes you happy because you deserve that much, Jennie.”

Jisoo huffs impatiently and nudges Jennie’s calf with her foot when she still doesn’t get a reply from the younger girl. “Jennie.”

Jennie thinks about what she’s promising her best friend. She can feel the early hangover coming and it’s all Jisoo’s fault.

“I promise,” the younger girl answers a few moments later, her voice low and scratchy.

She feels Jisoo move next to her. “Good.”

Jennie hears Jisoo’s breathing even out a few minutes later, but she stays awake flanked by her two sleeping best friends and watching the moon peeking from the blinds.

―

Jennie somehow falls into a rhythm. Work. Dinner with her sister or with friends or by herself when she feels like being alone. Yoga with Joohyun. Breakfast with Chahee every Tuesday after a run. FaceTime calls with Mina at least once a week.

And Lisa. 

Boxing with Lisa. Paintball with Lisa. Going on midnight 7-Eleven runs with Lisa when they run out of ice cream in the middle of watching season three of Gossip Girl. 

(“Just when Serena and Nate finally get together. Unfuckingbelievable,” Jennie complains while Lisa just laughs and wraps the older girl up in a coat).

Taking pictures with Lisa. Trying out the most ridiculous clothes with Lisa. Shopping with Lisa, a repeat of which is not going happen soon because they enable each other’s compulsive shopper tendencies. 

(“Why not both?” Lisa suggests when Jennie couldn’t make up her mind between a Prada handbag and a Gucci backpack. “You’re right, why not,” Jennie shrugs and buys the two bags while Lisa goes home with some Fenty x Puma tops and a Saint Laurent belt that Jennie cheers-slash-goads her into buying).

Talking with Lisa about their families, tteokbokki chips and a bottle of soju in front of them.

(“We don’t really talk a lot,” Jennie says of her father. “Our relationship is... difficult, to say the least.” She tells Lisa a little about her mom, tells her that she passed when Jennie was eight and leaves it at that. Lisa doesn’t ask anything else, but she moves closer to Jennie and puts a comforting hand on the small of her back. Jennie talks about Seolhyun the rest of the night.

Lisa is reluctant, afraid of being insensitive, but Jennie says it’s fine so she tells her about her father too, and about how he taught her to ski, and drive, and make the perfect eggs benedict. She tells her about her mom and her love for pop music and how she made the costumes for Lisa’s dance crew all those years ago.

Jennie smiles, warm at the thought of Lisa having such great parents, but she has her Uber take her to Seolhyun’s apartment after and spends the next two nights sleeping in her sister’s guest bedroom).

They get into these random, ridiculously dramatic games of rock, paper, scissors and they’re so utterly childish that Jennie can’t believe she’s almost always the one starting them. The loser has to do everything the winner wants, and so far, Jennie has had to clean Lisa’s car, pick up her laundry, and accompany her to a mini golf range, while Lisa has had to rearrange Jennie’s shoe closet by color and paint her nails yellow. 

(Jennie’s nails come out bad, Lisa is not exactly the best nail painter, but she wears them for a week anyway, and if it seems like she just wanted an excuse to hold Lisa’s hand then, well, what about it).

Lisa everywhere.

Lisa in her car, legs aching from an all-day shoot but fiddling enthusiastically with her phone to show Jennie this artist she just discovered. Lisa on her kitchen, watching her cook and volunteering to cut the onions because she doesn’t want Jennie to cry. Lisa in her office, swiveling around in her leather chair like the actual six-year old that she is while Jisoo laughs at her and Jennie just glares at the two of them. Lisa at her doorstep at 10 am on a Sunday, fresh-faced and ready for brunch. Lisa on her couch, feet on Jennie’s lap as they watch Tangled for the fourth time.

(Jennie wanted to watch Toy Story, even wore her little green men headband and slippers for it, but Lisa looked like she had a bad day when Jennie opened the door so she lets Lisa put on Tangled and order Hawaiian pizza, sings along later to I See The Light to make her smile).

Lisa on her mind, every goddamn day.

Lisa effortlessly wedges and weaves herself into every space of Jennie’s life, running her hands all over every nook and cranny of it, all over everything Jennie _is,_ as if saying _mine mine mine._

And it’s strange because Jennie spent 24 years without Lisa but suddenly she almost can’t remember what it was like not to have her there. It’s strange and _scary_.

Jennie holds herself back just so, comes up for air at the last minute when she feels herself drowning in Lisa just a little bit more.

She very rarely texts or calls first. She never spends the night at Lisa’s and never asks Lisa to spend the night at hers (except that one time they marathoned Gossip Girl until three am and fell asleep on the couch). She makes sure to keep most of her nights busy so she has an excuse not to hang out and it makes her feel like a horrible human being but she likes _(needs)_ to pretend that she still has some semblance of control over where all of this is headed.

―

Jennie tries breaking the rhythm because she isn’t a complete masochistic moron just yet.

She agrees to go to dinner with this guy Chahee sets her up with. He’s tall, attractive in a secondary character in a drama kind of way, and even pulls out a chair for her when she arrives at the restaurant they agreed upon. 

She has a nice enough time. The conversation isn’t dull, the guy doesn’t try to grope her under the table and treats their waiter nicely. Afterwards, he invites her for a drink in a bar nearby but she says no because she has an early morning meeting. He walks her to her car, waits until she drives off before going back to his own car, and yeah. It’s fine.

She calls Chahee before going to bed and tells her she probably isn’t going to see him again. She asks Jennie why.

“I don’t know,” Jennie answers. “I just..”

 _He’s not_ her.

But there will be other people.

―

(She doesn’t want other people).

―

It’s a Thursday night and Jennie is already in her pajamas ready to sleep when her phone rings.

It’s Lisa. Jennie stares at her phone, waits for the third ring before accepting the call.

“Can you come out?” Lisa asks without waiting for Jennie to say anything.

“Lisa? What’s up?”

“Just... can you come out? You’re home right?” Lisa asks again. “Please?”

There’s a tinge of desperation to her voice that scares Jennie just a little. She gets up from the bed and quickly walks to her closet to grab a jacket, any jacket, and then her wallet and her keys. “Yeah, I’m on my way out. Where are you? Are you okay?”

Lisa doesn’t answer.

“Lisa, please answer me,” Jennie pleads, her heart pounding now as she hurriedly walks to the living room. She pauses in front of the couch and waits for Lisa’s answer.

“I’m parked outside your house.”

Jennie lets out a breath and makes her way to her door. “Okay, stay there. I’ll be there in a few seconds.”

―

Lisa is outside, leaning against her car and phone still pressed against her ear.

“Hey,” she greets Jennie as she ends the call.

It takes Jennie two seconds to recognize her.

“Oh my God,” Jennie exclaims as she walks towards the other girl, just barely stopping herself from reaching out and touching Lisa’s now-brown hair. “You dyed your hair.”

Lisa self-consciously runs a hand through her hair and gives Jennie a strained smile. “Uh yeah. I’ve been thinking about dyeing it back to brown for a while now but I haven’t had the chance until yesterday... do you like it?”

Jennie smiles. Call her crazy but she’d probably like it even if Lisa dyed her hair neon green. Jury’s still out on a shaved head though. “Yes, it looks very good on you.”

“Thanks,” Lisa replies and that’s when Jennie notices. The red cheeks, the slur in Lisa’s voice, the slight but unmistakable smell of vodka in Lisa’s breath.

Jennie frowns. “Lisa, have you been drinking? Before you drove over here?”

Lisa blinks. “Uh... just a little, I promise. I can handle my alcohol well.”

Jennie glares at her, anger suddenly taking over her worry. “I don’t care! Lisa, that’s so irresponsible. You could’ve gotten pulled over and arrested. You could’ve gotten yourself or other people hurt. What the fuck were you thinking?” she hisses, raising her voice a little.

Lisa wraps her arms around her middle. She squirms under Jennie’s glare, her eyes going round and glassy. 

_‘Goddammit, Lisa,’_ Jennie thinks, suddenly deflating and feeling a little _(a lot)_ guilty for her outburst.

But God, she feels nauseous just at the thought of Lisa getting hurt.

“I wasn’t. I just wanted to... I’m sorry Jennie, I...”

Jennie steps closer to the other girl and puts a comforting hand on her arm. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout. What’s wrong? Is everything alright?”

“Will...” Lisa starts, her voice cracking. “Will you go on a drive with me? Please? I know it’s late and I’m sorry, it’s just...”

“Lisa...”

Lisa lets out a watery laugh and looks down on her feet. Something about it hits Jennie like a punch in the gut. “This is stupid, sorry. You don’t have to do that.”

Jennie cups Lisa’s cheek so she would look at her. “Hey, it’s not stupid. I’m just worried about you. We’ll go on a drive, okay? But I’ll drive. Where do you wanna go?”

Lisa nods and puts a hand over the one Jennie has on her cheek. “Anywhere.”

―

Lisa is quiet the whole drive, head against the window and barely paying attention to where they’re going, so Jennie keeps quiet too, even if she can’t help but throw the other girl worried glances from time to time.

They drive around the city and end up on the deserted rooftop parking lot of a building Jennie’s father owns. It’s a place she used to go to when she was a teenager and wanted out of her house but didn’t want to be seen by anyone.

She hasn’t been there in years.

It’s quiet for a few minutes after Jennie kills the engine and the silence reminds her of that night in Lisa’s back porch.

It’s Lisa who speaks first. “You’re in pajamas.”

Jennie looks down at her outfit - striped navy blue silk pajamas, the grey bomber jacket she grabbed from her closet, and a pair of slides. She’d normally never be caught wearing such an atrocious combination of clothes but she didn’t even think of changing earlier. “Oh, right. Sorry. I was kind of in a rush.”

“Don’t apologize. I think I was the one who rushed you,” Lisa shakes her head. “And you look cute.”

Jennie scoffs. “Stop.”

“You do,” Lisa insists, her voice quiet but firm. “And I’m sorry, by the way. I know it’s crazy just showing up drunk like that and asking you to go on a drive with me.”

“Just...” Jennie sighs. “Don’t ever do that again. You scared me. You could’ve called me earlier, I would’ve picked you up wherever you were.”

“Would you have come? If I called earlier?”

Jennie smiles sadly. She doesn’t even have to think about it, really. “Of course, Lisa.”

Jennie thinks there isn’t a place wouldn't come get Lisa from.

―

“It’s been a year since Rosie and I - since Rosie left,” Lisa says a few minutes later as she plays with the cuff of her oversized red sweater. Jennie’s eyes are on her hands, watching the other girl’s index finger loop and unloop around a stray thread.

Jennie looks up, eyebrows knitting in confusion. “Rosie?”

“Chaeyoung. Um, her English name is Roseanne.”

“Ah,” Jennie nods. Suddenly the roses make sense. “Is that why you got yourself wasted?”

Lisa chuckles self-deprecatingly. “Embarrassing, I know. And totally cliché.”

“We do what we can to cope,” Jennie shrugs. Jisoo told her this one time when she and her dad had a terrible fight that she likes running away from her problems. She flew to Amsterdam the next day so Jisoo is probably correct. “Do you miss her?”

“Yeah,” Lisa says and Jennie looks away. “Kind of hard not to, especially on days like this. I’ve always known her. I’m not used to not knowing her. Even now.”

Jennie just nods, suddenly feeling tired. Why does she do this to herself?

“I texted her, you know? When I was, like, in the middle of drinking,” Lisa continues.

Jennie has to laugh at that. The sound feels hollow on her throat. “Drunk-texting the ex. How typical. What did you say?”

“That I missed her and I hope she’s doing fine,” Lisa answers, her head lolling against the car window. “And I wished her good luck on her tour.”

“Tour?”

“She’s a singer,” Lisa answers, closing her eyes. “I’ve heard you play some of her songs a few times in your car. I don’t think you’ve noticed but sometimes I get your phone to press skip when they play. But sometimes I let them play all the way through because that’s the only way I hear her voice anymore.”

Jennie vaguely remembers Lisa hurriedly reaching for her phone and changing the song this one time they were on their way to Jisoo’s house for dinner. She didn’t think much of it, but she knew what the song was, knew who the singer was.

The image of a tall, pretty singer with blonde hair flashes through Jennie’s mind. 

_God._

“Did she... did she answer your texts?” Jennie asks.

“No,” Lisa huffs. “She’s probably busy. And I don’t even think I want her to.”

“Why not?”

Lisa doesn’t answer. Jennie thinks she’s fallen asleep.

“I wish I could’ve done more to make it work. To make us work,” Lisa says quietly a few seconds later, her eyes still closed and Jennie hurts for her. She throws out the rules she’s established for herself for a second and reaches across the console to wrap Lisa’s hand in hers.

Lisa doesn’t open her eyes but she laces their fingers together and Jennie’s almost jumps out of her seat.

“I’m sure you did all you can,” Jennie reassures her. She hasn’t met them yet but she knows how much Lisa dotes on her parents. She knows how much Lisa tries and goes all-in for the people she cares about. 

But then again, she doesn’t know what happened between her and Chaeyoung.

“If I did she’d probably still be here.”

Jennie traces Lisa’s face with her eyes - her eyebrows, her jaw, the mole just beside her upper lip, the line of her nose, her lips. Jennie thinks she looks peaceful. “Sometimes you can do all you can and it still wouldn’t be enough to make them stay. We have to stop punishing ourselves for that,” she says. 

“You’re too good to me,” Lisa squeezes her hand. Jennie doesn’t know what to tell her.

Lisa’s fingers go slack in Jennie’s hand minutes later. 

Jennie forces herself to let them go.

―

Jennie drives them back to her house.

She sets Lisa up in the guest bedroom then goes back to her own room to get some pajamas for the other girl.

When Jennie comes back with the pajamas and a glass of water, she finds Lisa up and looking at the music boxes on the vanity.

“These are so pretty,” Lisa says without turning around, running a finger gently through an antique ivory music box.

Jennie smiles and deposits the glass of water on the bedside table. “Most of those were my mom’s, including that ivory one. The others I bought myself.”

Lisa turns to her. “I didn’t know you like music boxes.”

Jennie hands her the peach-colored pajamas. “You learn something new everyday.”

“Your mom would be proud of you, you know,” Lisa says.

Jennie chuckles, as if not quite believing Lisa. “Well, I hope so.”

“You’re beautiful, smart, strong, and so, so good,” Lisa says softly. “What’s not to be proud of?”

Jennie swallows at the way Lisa’s looking at her and tries not to blush. “A lot of things, probably,” she replies, looking away. “You should change. There’s some towels and a spare toothbrush on the en suite. There’s Advil on one of the cabinets there too, you should probably take some out so you could drink them tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Jennie,” Lisa nods and gives her one last smile before going to the bathroom to change.

―

Jennie’s sitting on the edge of the bed looking through her schedule for the next few days when Lisa returns from the bathroom.

“Hey,” she looks up from her phone when she hears Lisa come out and immediately regrets it. Giving Lisa pajama shorts instead of pajama pants is probably not the best idea when her legs look like that in them. 

“You look good in my pajamas,” she blurts out before she can stop herself.

Lisa smiles, this sleepy little thing that makes Jennie want to just melt on the floor in a puddle. “I do?”

Jennie quickly averts her eyes and stands up from the bed. “Yes. But uh, I should go and let you get some rest.”

“Right.”

“Good night, Lisa.”

“I - ” Lisa starts, and Jennie thinks she’s about to say something else but then - 

“Good night, Nini. Thank you for tonight.”

Jennie can’t help but smile at the use of her childhood nickname. Jisoo taught Lisa a lot of things. “You’re welcome.”

She’s almost at the door when Lisa calls her, her voice so quiet that Jennie barely hears it.

“Jennie, wait.”

Jennie turns around with a questioning glance. “Yeah?”

“Will you stay with me?” Lisa pleads. “Please?”

Jennie knows she should say no. Her self-control is barely hanging by a thread and she’s not sure sleeping next to Lisa will help with that. But Lisa’s asking her to stay and how could she say no? 

“Sure.”

―

They lie there awake on their backs, a foot between them and the only light the soft glow of the streetlights seeping through the curtains.

Lisa lets out a shaky breath. “I hate this. I hate that I’m still so... so pathetic over her. I hate that I texted her tonight, I hate that I waited for her to greet me on my birthday when I knew she wouldn’t.”

Jennie turns on her side to face Lisa and puts a cool hand on the younger girl’s wrist. “Lisa.”

“I hate that she pretends that I don’t exist anymore. That we didn’t spend eight years of our lives together, growing up and making plans. I hate that I still miss her. She was my best friend, Jennie,” Lisa says, her voice breaking.

Jennie pulls Lisa closer to her and the other girl immediately buries her face in Jennie’s chest and wraps an arm around Jennie’s waist. Jennie rubs her back and Lisa just cries harder, her tears soaking through the silk material of Jennie’s shirt. For a split second, Jennie hates Chaeyoung with every fiber of her being. 

She’s never hated Chaeyoung for having Lisa first, for Lisa still being hung up on her, but just for that night, Jennie allows herself to hate her for this - for hurting Lisa, for making her cry, for leaving her.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Lisa cries, her voice muffled and thick with tears. “I’m so sorry.”

Jennie’s not sure who the apologies are for.

She presses a kiss onto Lisa’s forehead and pulls her even closer. “Shh, baby, stop apologizing. It’ll be okay, I promise.”

Jennie strokes Lisa’s hair and holds her as she cries and even after she has long fallen asleep, even after the lights outside have been replaced by the sun. She wonders if Lisa’s broken heart is supposed to shatter her own this much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (there's a ne-yo reference in there which is totally unintended, sorry)  
> thank you for reading!!!!! let me know what you think!!!!!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jennie is warm against her, smelling of coconut sunscreen and a little of saltwater, and Lisa is sleepy and tired but she thinks she’ll be okay.

The first time Lisa sleeps with someone else is two months after the break-up. 

Seulgi and Ten get sick of her moping around the apartment and drag her out of bed with promises of a great night in this bar in Hongdae where she could, in their words, “get back on the horse because there are other fish in the sea.” Lisa’s pretty sure that’s totally not how the saying goes but she showers and dresses up anyway, too tired to put up a protest against her two friends who have taken care of her the past two months.

She’s about five shots of tequila and two glasses of a champagne cocktail in when Ten, giggly and drunk, leads her to the dancefloor and all but shoves her to the nearest most decent-looking woman he could find. She dances a bit with this cute, lavender-haired girl with a pixie-cut but that quickly fizzles out and she’s just dancing alone, eyes closed and gyrating rather drunkenly to shitty EDM, when she feels a hand on her waist. She turns around to warm, brown eyes and red hair, and for a hazy second, Lisa thinks it’s Chaeyoung.

It’s not her, but Lisa is too drunk to care so she grinds her hips against the other woman’s in a way she’s almost forgotten how and lets the woman press vodka-stained kisses on her neck. Lisa pulls the her in for a deep, bruising kiss and she can’t help but feel a little disgusted with herself but she still nods her head when the other woman asks if she wants to get out of there.

They go back to the other woman’s place a few blocks away and Lisa doesn’t know how to do _this_ with anyone other than Chaeyoung but she takes her clothes off anyway and almost says Chaeyoung’s name when she comes. She cries afterwards in a strange bathroom, wracked with guilt and self-loathing, says goodbye to the girl whose name she doesn’t even know, and leaves a crying, half-slurred apology on Chaeyoung’s voicemail on the way home.

The second time she sleeps with someone else, it’s a month or so later and it’s with this girl she’s worked on several shoots with. She’s perfectly sober and doesn’t cry this time and even lets Sora hold her after for a while because she’s so lonely and Chaeyoung _left_ and Lisa refuses to feel guilty anymore for trying to fix what she broke. Everything feels wrong though, she thinks it would never feel right with anyone else ever again, so she puts her clothes on despite Sora asking her to stay and throws up when she gets home.

She sleeps with Sora again until it kind of becomes a regular thing. They even go out sometimes and it’s almost like they’re dating and Lisa is _trying_ but it’s still Chaeyoung’s fingers she sees dancing on thighs, still Chaeyoung’s nails she feels digging crescents into her shoulders, still Chaeyoung’s voice she hears whispering in her ear.

Lisa tries and pretends but Sora isn’t Chaeyoung. 

She doesn’t kiss Lisa like Chaeyoung does, doesn’t hold her hand like Chaeyoung does, doesn’t sing her to sleep like Chaeyoung does. The way she walks is different, the way she smiles is different, the sounds she makes in bed are different, everything is different and _wrong_. 

“I’m falling in love with you,” Sora tells her one night in bed, her thumb drawing circles on Lisa’s bare hip.

The words fill Lisa with dread. She swallows, guilt and frustration with herself swirling around her stomach.

She wants to reach out and ask Sora to give her more time, but that would only be dishonest. She doesn’t think she could ever reciprocate what the other girl feels. She doesn’t think she ever wants to. She should have never let it get this far.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Sora smiles sadly. “I know. But I had to try.” She tucks a stray lock of hair behind Lisa’s ears and pulls her closer for a kiss. It feels like a goodbye.

Even then, all Lisa could think about was the last time Chaeyoung kissed her. Sora takes a shower after and Lisa drives home, wondering all the while if her ex is going to be her point of reference her whole life.

―

She wakes up in Jennie’s arms the morning after her break-up anniversary with Chaeyoung though and the first thought that comes into her mind isn’t _“this isn’t Chaeyoung, but I wish it was.”_

She doesn’t think of anything actually, but there’s a warmth that blooms just behind her breastbone and that spreads all the way down to her toes at the sight of Jennie’s slightly slacked mouth and the feel of her arms secure around her waist. She watches Jennie for a while with half-lidded eyes and this strange but not unwelcome calm that settles within her, follows the rise and fall of her shoulders, and traces the small mole on her left eyelid with the tip of her pinky. 

Jennie stirs a little and Lisa smiles, nestles herself closer to the older girl, and goes back to sleep.

―

It’s almost three in the afternoon when Lisa gets home and she’s greeted by the smell of Lysol and the sight of Seulgi furiously scrubbing their kitchen countertop, a red bandana adorning her head.

“Hey,” Lisa says carefully because Seulgi really only cleans like this when she’s stressed.

Seulgi looks up and an expression of what looks like relief flashes across her face at the sight of her best friend. “Hey, you’re home.”

Lisa drops her bag on a chair and picks up the mop, feeling guilty for worrying Seulgi last night by not texting sooner. “Sorry for leaving yesterday without telling you.”

Seulgi points to the area near the fridge where Lisa should mop. “It’s fine, you’ve done worse,” she smiles and Lisa doesn’t argue because she knows she has. “Who’s the friend you ended up crashing with? You didn’t tell me in your text.”

“Um,” Lisa frowns and starts mopping. “Jennie.”

“Oh,” Seulgi pauses. “How is that going?” she asks and goes back to scrubbing their countertop to death. Her tone is casual but Lisa knows when her best friend is trying to interrogate her.

Lisa rolls her eyes. “Nothing’s going on,” she mumbles.

Seulgi hums. “Okay, if you say so.”

Lisa makes a noise of frustration and mops a spot on the floor maybe a bit too harshly. “There’s really nothing going on.”

“Of course there isn’t,” Seulgi says in a tone that a mother would use when humoring her child.

“Seul,” Lisa huffs, irritated and maybe still a bit woozy from all the vodka from last night even if Jennie made sure to feed her chicken noodle soup and a banana smoothie for brunch, which the Korean girl swears by as the best cures for a hangover.

Seulgi raises her gloved hands in defeat. “Okay, okay you’re _just_ friends. Jeez.”

Lisa stops mopping and looks at her best friend. “We _are_ just friends. Stop insinuating we’re something more.”

“I’m not insinuating anything,” Seulgi shrugs. 

Lisa glares at her.

“Okay maybe just a bit. Look, it was one year after you and Chaeyoung broke up and you were all miserable and snappy and anti-social yesterday,” Seulgi explains. “But you went to Jennie. Of all people.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Doesn’t it, though? I don’t want you rushing into a relationship, Lord knows what happened the last time you sort of did, and I also don’t want to be presumptuous but maybe there’s something there. Jisoo and I talk about it - ”

Lisa frowns, even if her heart beats a little faster at the thought of maybe having ‘something’ with Jennie. “You and Jisoo talk about us?”

“Of course we do, we’re your friends. But that’s not the point,” Seulgi replies. “The point is, you’re spending a lot of time with her. You also spend a lot of time with me, obviously, but I don’t know. It’s different. You seem lighter now. Happier, even.”

“Seulgi – ”

“That’s a good thing Lisa,” Seulgi interrupts. “Whether or not it’s because of Jennie, that’s a good thing. Stop being defensive about it. Stop being defensive about her.”

Seulgi cleans the sink next, changes the topic to the latest installment of Ten and Taeyong’s on-going saga, and thankfully doesn’t ask anymore questions about Jennie the rest of the day.

―

She’s always found it hard to sleep since Chaeyoung left but it’s not the redhead (Lisa’s not actually sure what her hair color is now, Seulgi turned off her Google alert for Chaeyoung and blocked her on all of Lisa’s socials a few months ago) that keeps her awake that night.

She turns over Seulgi’s words over and over again in her head, trying to make sense of everything she’s feeling. 

She’d be lying if she said she hasn’t thought about it even a little. It crosses her mind sometimes when she’s with Jennie, especially when the other girl is being... well, _Jennie_ \- understanding, incredibly kind and intelligent, and so, so attuned to how Lisa feels that it scares the Thai girl sometimes because she hasn’t even known Jennie that long but she gets Lisa like no one else has since Chaeyoung.

It’s so, so easy to like her, to be with her. But Sora was also easy to like. Sora was also her friend. Who’s to say she wouldn’t hurt Jennie like she did Sora?

What if she’s mistaking friendship for something more because she desperately wants to move on and she ends up pushing Jennie away or scaring her or hurting her?

Lisa would hate herself if she did.

And maybe it’s all moot anyway because she doesn’t even know what Jennie feels. The Korean girl can be so guarded and closed off, hiding her feelings behind startlingly beautiful cat eyes, that sometimes Lisa finds it difficult to read her.

But sometimes the way Jennie looks at her, the way Jennie holds her...

When she does finally sleep, she dreams of tweed suits and music boxes, of silk pajamas against her skin and blood-red nails drumming against a steering wheel.

―

August is just basically rain, rain, and more rain but one Friday in the middle of the month promises to be positively warm and sunny which, according to Jisoo, is the perfect opportunity for them to play hooky and get away from the hustle and bustle of the city for a beach day in Samcheok. It doesn’t take much to convince Jennie to agree to Jisoo’s plan, and somehow they both manage to convince Lisa and their friend Joohyun into joining too.

And okay, Joohyun, without a shred of a doubt, is one of the most objectively beautiful (and intimidating) women Lisa has ever met and probably has the best resting bitch face this side of Jennie Kim.

Jennie has mentioned Joohyun several times before (she’s a lawyer and Jennie’s long-time friend and yoga buddy and their dads have been business partners for years), but she hasn’t mentioned that Joohyun was this _beautiful_.

And smart too and actually pretty nice, but whatever.

She’d appreciate her more if she didn’t cling to Jennie in the backseat like a fucking koala bear on a bamboo tree. Lisa watches them from the rearview mirror, their arms linked and heads close together as they laugh at something on Joohyun’s phone. 

Jennie seems really fond of her. 

Lisa frowns and crosses her arms.

“Lisa, you looking forward to swimming?” Jisoo asks, but her words barely register to Lisa.

“Hmm?” Lisa says, tearing her eyes away from the two women in the back, frown still on her face. She feels stupid because really, whatever’s going on between Jennie and Joohyun is none of her business. “Sorry, I was a bit... distracted.”

Jisoo throws her an amused smirk from the driver’s seat. “Oh you were? I asked if you were looking forward to swimming.”

Lisa shrugs. “I guess,” she grumbles.

Jisoo just chuckles like the little shit she is and pisses everyone off in the car by playing and dramatically singing along to Baby by Justin Bieber five consecutive times.

―

They spend most of the first half of the day under a large bright pink umbrella, drinking mango shake and eating the waffle sticks that Jennie made while talking Jisoo through her ‘crisis’ with Junmyeon. Apparently, Junmyeon wants to make things official while Jisoo doesn’t see the point in it.

(“It’s just labels, I don’t get it,” Jisoo complains.

“Maybe he wants the security that comes with the label,” Joohyun says gently. “That’s not a bad thing to want, Chu.”

“And it’s not as if it would hurt you,” Jennie adds helpfully. “It would make him happy. It would make you happy too in the long run, even if you’re so against it right now.”

Jisoo looks to Lisa. “And you? What do you think?”

“Well, Chaeng and I made things official very quickly but we still broke up, so,” Lisa says. “But Jennie’s right. A label or making things official or whatever - it wouldn’t hurt. It would even probably help your relationship.”

Jisoo just grumbles about how they’re all ganging up on her and reaches for another waffle stick.)

Jennie dozes off after rubbing sunscreen all over her body (Lisa absolutely does _not_ watch her do that and absolutely does _not_ sulk when she asks Joohyun to do her back) while Jisoo and Joohyun take out the paperbacks they brought along for the trip. Lisa gets bored with throwing bits of rice crackers to the seagulls and occasionally glaring at an unsuspecting Joohyun and wanders off with her camera because Samcheok, with it’s beautiful rock formations and perfect blue waters, is too beautiful not to be captured.

She takes pictures of the ocean and the islands dotting it; of the little sea creatures crawling in the sand; of Jennie sleeping under her raffia hat; of the tops of the various multi-colored umbrellas occupying the strip of the beach; of the shells scattered through the shore; of the seafoam and the water crashing with the rocks; of everything she could see because she hasn’t had this kind of energy to actually take pictures in months and she is going to take advantage. 

When she gets back, Joohyun is still reading under the umbrella while Jisoo and Jennie have borrowed a pail and shovel set from the family beside them and are attempting to build an elaborate sandcastle. It gets washed out by the water not even halfway through and Jennie whines like a petulant child who got her candy taken away. Lisa laughs and takes a picture of the two best friends with their rapidly crumbling sandcastle, trying her hardest not to be endeared when Jennie pouts and crosses her arms at the camera.

A little later, she stares (not creepily, she swears), more than a little transfixed behind her sunglasses, as Jennie takes off her maxi dress to reveal the black Chanel one-piece she’s wearing underneath.

(Lisa asked her once if she gets the hives if she doesn’t have a piece of Chanel in her body. Jennie threatened to throw a vintage Chanel hair clip at her which really just proved Lisa’s point because who the fuck just casually owns and threatens to use as projectile a $500 hair clip? Jennie, that’s who).

Jennie is gorgeous - unbelievably, infuriatingly so - and has this skin that Lisa’s pretty sure bathes in Evian water and has a body that’s like... _yeah_. But it’s not like Lisa hasn’t noticed that before. The alleged love of her life stomped on her heart, not her damn eyeballs.

Not that she wants to objectify Jennie or anything gross like that.

She quickly looks away, the tips of her ears burning, when Jennie turns to her, asking if she wants to swim with her and Joohyun.

Lisa mutters a weak _‘maybe later, too hot’_ and reaches for a can of Coke from the cooler.

Jisoo lets out a very unladylike snort behind the book she’s reading. Lisa very pointedly ignores her.

―

“She has a girlfriend, you know.”

Lisa turns to Jisoo and away from the sight of Joohyun and Jennie examining a purple starfish and some shells near the shoreline. She puts down her almost-empty can of Coke and narrows her eyes at the other girl. “What?”

“Joohyun,” Jisoo answers, not looking up from her book. “She has a girlfriend. They’ve been dating for two years and are very much in love. You don’t need to worry about her.”

“Who said I was worried?” Lisa scoffs, although the knot of anxiety on her stomach eases at Jisoo’s words. “Why would _I_ be worried?”

Jisoo shrugs and pops a grape into her mouth, still refusing to look up from her book. “I don’t know. Why would you be?”

Lisa scowls and grumbles under her breath about Jisoo being a pain in the ass because seriously, she gets enough shit from Seulgi already. But she buys Joohyun an ice cream sundae a little later when Jennie’s off building yet another sandcastle with Jisoo and doesn’t complain when Joohyun drags her to the water to swim and look for more pretty seashells and rocks.

―

She’s on the water alone, her camera slung around her neck and the waves crashing against her ankles, when she sees a group of teenagers several meters away excitedly getting ready to parasail.

And she begs her mind not to go there but all she can think about all of a sudden is Chaeyoung and the last time they were on the beach together. It’s all still clear in her head - the weather that day, sunny and perfect; Chaeyoung’s smile when Lisa said she’d go parasailing with her for a second time; the briny wind and ocean spray blowing in their faces; the feel of Chaeyoung’s cool lips on her own when they were up in the air.

It’s all still _there_ and Lisa’s chest hurts and it feels like she’s mourning their relationship again for the thousandth time, and for a moment she can’t breathe but then Jennie suddenly appears on her side, offering her a towel.

Lisa exhales.

“Jisoo said we’d be going in a few so we could beat the rush hour traffic. Are you ready to go?” Jennie asks as she follows Lisa’s line of sight. “Do you wanna go parasailing?”

Lisa takes the towel and gives Jennie a weak smile. “No, I just...” she trails off and clears her throat. “The last time we were together at the beach, Rosie and I went parasailing. She crossed my mind, I guess.”

“Oh,” Jennie says, her eyebrows knitting in concern. “You okay?”

Lisa nods and wraps the towel around her shoulders. Jennie obviously doesn’t believe her but thankfully doesn’t press anymore. It’s a thing about Jennie that confuses Lisa. Jennie isn’t very nosy and quickly apologizes when she thinks she’s overstepping. But at the same time, a very large part of Lisa wants her to overstep and ask and turn her inside out - get to know the ugly, damaged parts of her and like her anyway. 

But Jennie has already been doing that, Lisa realizes. She’s been doing that since they first met, carefully and deliberately peeking through Lisa’s defenses and liking whatever she sees anyway. She thinks of Jennie, practically a stranger, sitting with her very drunk, very miserable self in silence on her birthday when she could’ve gone inside to join the others. Jennie hating pizza but letting her order one anyway because she knew Lisa was sad. Jennie in her pajamas driving her around Seoul and holding her in bed afterwards as she cried herself to sleep over Chaeyoung again. 

Jennie, just a few weeks ago, growing quiet and passing her phone to Lisa when one of Chaeyoung’s songs suddenly started playing from one of her playlists.

(“I haven’t had the time to, like, delete her from my playlists,” Jennie says apologetically.

Lisa takes Jennie’s phone but doesn’t change the song. “It’s fine, you don’t need to apologize for that. She has amazing songs, you don’t have to stop listening to them for me. I would never want to deprive someone of the beauty of her art or whatever.”

Jennie purses her lips and nods. Lisa’s pretty sure she’s still going to delete the songs. “Did she ever write a song about you?” 

“That one’s about me, actually,” Lisa answers, motioning to the song still playing on Jennie’s stereo. 

_‘You don't ask for a thing, oh, I hope it's you they put me in the ground by’_

“I... I think every self-written song she has about love and relationships is about me. Or, you know, inspired by me. Unless she had another secret relationship I didn’t know about.”

_‘You've watched as my legs and pride grew taller, oh, I wanna be the one you call drunk’_

Jennie smiles. It’s a little sad and resigned, and Lisa doesn’t understand the slight twinge in her chest when she sees it. “She wrote about you beautifully.”)

Jennie right now, looking at her with nothing but understanding.

“Was it nice? Parasailing?” Jennie asks. She comes closer and carefully takes the camera from Lisa. She slings the camera around her own neck and trains it on the younger girl.

“Jennie, no,” Lisa whines when she realizes what the other girl is doing and covers her face with her hands. “I look ugly. Like a wet rat.”

Jennie chuckles behind the camera. “Have you seen yourself? You can never look ugly. And you’ve been taking pictures the whole day, it’s my turn to take pictures of you. Now get your hands out of your face and answer my question.”

Lisa rolls her eyes, even if she can’t help but smile genuinely at Jennie’s bossiness, and puts her hands down. “Yeah, it was nice. I kind of got seasick though. You’ve never been?”

“No,” Jennie shakes her head ruefully. “I have really bad motion sickness. Like, patches-behind-your-ears kind of bad.”

Lisa lets Jennie take more pictures and listens to her talk about motion sickness patches and amusement park rides as they make their way back to Jisoo and Joohyun. The ache in her chest is still there, but Jennie laughs as she tells Lisa about her first time on a roller-coaster, and it recedes slowly but surely, like the water on the shore receding back to the ocean.

―

Joohyun volunteers to drive on the way home and Jisoo calls shotgun, leaving Jennie and Lisa on the backseat.

Jennie starts a movie on her phone but quickly falls asleep on Lisa’s shoulders not even a quarter through it. Her hand falls on the younger girl’s thigh, red fingernails stark against the tan of Lisa’s skin. Lisa sees Jisoo and Joohyun throw several curious glances at them but she ignores the two older girls and closes her eyes, her head resting on top of Jennie’s.

Jennie is warm against her, smelling of coconut sunscreen and a little of saltwater, and Lisa is sleepy and tired but she thinks she’ll be okay.

―

Lisa develops her film and frames this hilarious photo of Jennie freaking out over a sea urchin and this black and white one that’s probably Lisa’s favorite - the one with her gums showing and her right eye smaller than her left because she’s smiling so wide. She drives it over to Jennie’s and they spend half an hour bickering because _“I can’t believe you would even think of framing that picture with the sea urchin, Lisa. I look ridiculous, you’re so annoying.”_

Jennie said she’d still put both pictures in her living room wall though, so Lisa still won.

There’s this one picture Jennie took that Lisa loves - the one where she was laughing while Jennie tells her all about her ill-fated roller-coaster ride and it’s kind of blurry because the older girl was laughing too while taking it but it makes something inside of Lisa shift when she sees it because she can’t remember the last time she laughed that hard, that sincerely. She buys a frame for it too and Seulgi tells her to put it on the small mantle in the living room. Jennie teases her when she sees it, saying that Lisa’s just trying to show off her abs to their visitors, but she catches the older girl looking at it one time, and, well, Lisa gets her back and teases her for staring at her abs.

(Seulgi said Jennie looked at it like it was a goddamn Van Gogh piece. Lisa threatened to elbow her best friend in the stomach but really, she was all mushy inside at the thought of Jennie looking at a picture of her like _that_ ).

―

September means New York Fashion Week.

Lisa has walked Seoul for different Korean brands and designers thrice already but she’s never walked New York and for Michael Kors and she’s going to throw up from how nervous she is.

She tells Jennie as much over FaceTime. It’s almost two am in Seoul and almost one pm in New York and Lisa has just gotten back to her hotel from her final fitting and rehearsal for the showcase the next day when she calls Jennie, forgetting the time difference between them. It’s not until Jennie answered with heavy eyes and a raspy _‘hello’_ that Lisa remembered. She apologized profusely was about to hang up to let Jennie sleep but the other girl must have seen something on Lisa’s face and insisted that the younger girl tell her about the fitting.

“Lisa, you’ll be fine. You have an _amazing_ walk. They are going to love you,” Jennie says sleepily, the light from her bedside lamp illuminating her bare face. “They already do. They chose you to walk for them. You’re amazing.”

“You’re just saying that,” Lisa whines, her blush evident even through Jennie’s phone screen.

Jennie burrows closer to her navy blue comforter and laughs. Lisa has the very irrational need to get on the next flight back to Seoul because hearing that sound over the phone just does not compare to hearing it in person. “I’m not. It’s true.”

Lisa rolls her eyes. “I should let you sleep.”

“Okay, I don’t think I’m going to last for much longer anyway,” Jennie yawns. “But I’m gonna be cheering you on from seven thousand miles away. Even in my dreams, maybe.”

It’s Lisa’s turn to laugh. “Thank you for dealing with me and my nerves,” she says, hugging her pillow tighter. “And I’m sorry again for waking you up.”

“No problem. You’re going to kill it,” Jennie replies with so much conviction and raw honesty that Lisa has no choice but to believe her. 

Lisa just scrunches up her face so she wouldn’t cry and she finds it hard to swallow around how tight her throat suddenly is. She misses Jennie and it’s actually _annoying_ because it’s only been two days at most since they last saw each other. “I miss you. Go back to sleep.”

Jennie’s eyes go wide for a second then soften fondly. “I miss you too. Enjoy New York, okay? But don’t go to the Statue of Liberty or buy one of those I Heart NY shirts, I will literally disown you.”

Lisa doesn’t tell her that she already bought one each for Seulgi, Ten, and Jeongyeon.

“I won’t,” she chuckles. “Sleep well, Jennie.”

Jennie hangs up first with one final sleepy smile and Lisa knows she’s right - she’s going to kill it tomorrow.

―

What Lisa doesn’t know is this:

Jennie spends an hour after she hangs up tossing and turning in bed replaying the way Lisa said ‘I miss you,’ and Jennie knows it’s pathetic and that she’s practically living off crumbs, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. She’s pretty sure Lisa means it too.

Jennie goes home early from her dinner with Seolhyun, takes a quick shower, logs on to her barely-used Twitter, and clicks on what she’s pretty sure is the legit live stream for the Michael Kors show. She watches through clothes that make her eyebrows raise, stuffing milk ice cream in her mouth every now and then, only sitting up to pay more attention when Lisa shows up like she owns the whole fucking thing. Lisa slinks and sashays through the runway with the grace and fluidity of a seasoned dancer, her face cool and composed and her lips quirking just so with the ghost of that almost-arrogant smirk that Jennie adores. You wouldn’t even think that less than twenty-four hours ago she was on the phone with Jennie, wondering if her walk or her face or her entire being and body of work was good enough to place her in such a prestigious show with the likes of Joan Smalls and Gigi Hadid.

Jennie smiles through the rest of the show, pride and something more that she refuses to name swelling within her.

―

Lisa smiles to herself backstage, after a barrage of hugs and congratulations from the other models and freaking Michael Kors himself, still a little sweaty and in her runway clothes.

She takes the time to remember the dogged belief her parents and her friends (Seulgi, Jisoo, Ten, Jeongyeon, _Jennie_ , all of them) have had in her especially in the past year and it feels like she’s finally taking control of herself again, moving with the world again, finally breathing and living again.

―

Lisa’s out for lunch after the show with some of the other models when she finally opens her phone. It quickly buzzes with messages from her family and friends, but she chooses to open the one from Jennie first. It’s a short video of Lisa walking the runway, Jennie apparently watched through a livestream, and she’s just about to reply when another message comes in.

The smile on Lisa’s face drops at the sight of the name of the sender.

**_Sooyoung 12:56 pm_ **  
_‘saw pics of you walking michael kors omg wtf!!!’_

_‘so proud! congratulations!!!!’_

Lisa stares at her phone, wondering if it’s glitching or if she has somehow mixed up her contacts.

She and Sooyoung were kind of close once but they haven’t talked in almost a year. Sooyoung is Chaeyoung’s best friend so obviously, Chaeyoung got her in the break-up. Lisa got Seulgi and Ten, and they kind of share Yeri, since she and Sooyoung are very close.

Not that Lisa is keeping count.

Her phone buzzes with another message from Sooyoung.

_‘chaeng and i are in ny too for the coach show at pier 17 btw. if you wanna drop by after? we can all hang out @ the afterparty??? the show ends at 7.’_

Lisa’s blood runs cold as she reads it.

She should have known. She _knows_ Chaeyoung is a brand ambassador, they were still together when she got the offer, of course she’d be in New York for fashion week too.

Lisa knows the two of them have mostly been in Seoul the past year so it’s not as if being in the same city as her ex is new for her. But this is the first time Sooyoung has asked her to hang out after the break-up and Lisa doesn’t know what to think.

Does Chaeyoung know about this? Does Chaeyoung wanna see her? Lisa tries not to get too crazy, but does Chaeyoung want to get back together?

Does Lisa want to see her? Does Lisa want to get back together with her? 

Ask her those questions two or three months ago and she’s pretty sure she’d answer yes in a heartbeat but now she’s not sure. She’s not sure of anything. Everything is confusing and Lisa has just gotten used to figuring herself out without Chaeyoung, has just gotten used to life without her, to seeing the world without and beyond her, and now with three short text messages, Chaeyoung is suddenly, _maybe_ in her life again.

Or maybe Lisa is overthinking this. Maybe Chaeyoung won’t even be there.

She turns off her phone and stuffs it back in her bag, her hands shaking a little. Anya, the model next to her, asks her if she’s alright and Lisa nods and fakes a smile, trying unsuccessfully to keep Sooyoung’s texts out of her mind.

―

Lisa’s pretty sure she’s burning the carpet of her hotel room with how much she’s been pacing for the last hour.

She pauses her pacing and glances at her silver wristwatch. _6:42 pm._

She throws herself on the bed and runs a hand through her face, then reaches for her phone, staring at it for a few seconds.

She goes to her messages and reads Sooyoung’s texts again.

Then she reads the last message from Jennie a few hours ago.

_‘good night, im going to sleep! you did so well li!!! hate to say i told you so, but i told you you’d kill it. im so incredibly proud of you, can’t wait for you to get home so we can celebrate! see you in less than two days and please bring me some cookies from that bakery i told you about :)’_

She makes up her mind and dials her manager.

“ _Unnie,_ ” Lisa says when her manager picks up on the first ring. “Can you book me an Uber please? I need to go somewhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> where are you going lisa????
> 
> the lyrics from chaeyoung's song are actually from [around by niki](https://open.spotify.com/track/3ktEQWTaFOfR1k9I3GA9V6), y'all should listen to it! and to all of niki's songs tbh.
> 
> thanks for reading, lemme know what you think!!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jennie almost wants to ask her to stay.
> 
> Almost.

Lisa shifts the box of cookies in her hands and presses the doorbell to Jennie’s apartment.

The door flies open a few seconds later, and there Jennie is with a surprised look on her face and still clad in what Lisa knows is her usual office wear - a jacket (her favorite Gucci one tonight from what Lisa can tell), well-tailored trousers, and heels, even if it is almost 10 pm already.

Lisa smiles and raises the box of cookies. “Is this a bad time?”

Jennie smiles and pulls Lisa closer for a hug, slightly squishing the box between them. “You’re, like, fifteen hours early,” she mumbles on Lisa’s hair.

“Did you miss me?” Lisa chuckles as she holds Jennie closer.

“Not as much as you missed me apparently,” the shorter girl answers, disentangling herself from Lisa and grabbing the box from her hands. “Come on, you can tell me all about New York while I make us some dinner.”

―

Jennie changes into a shirt and cycling shorts before taking out the ingredients for a chicken pesto dinner. Lisa cooks the pasta but mostly just talks about New York and watches as Jennie grinds the basil, garlic, and walnuts on her ridiculously shiny food processor.

“Did you just come from the office when I rang, by the way? It’s kinda late,” Lisa asks later as the Korean girl hands her a bowl of chicken pesto and settles herself beside her on the couch.

“Yeah actually, the legal department had an emergency meeting I had to attend and then I got held up by dad being an asshole,” Jennie answers, rolling her eyes and turning on the television.

Lisa frowns in concern and shifts closer to the other girl. “What happened?”

“Mom’s death anniversary is in two days and we had an argument,” Jennie mutters as she clicks on a random episode of Stranger Things on Netflix. She sounds sad and resentful and something in Lisa aches for her. “Seolhyun and I want to have lunch with my grandparents after we visit her in the cemetery, he wants it to be a dinner because he’s obsessed with work and can’t skip lunch with some English investors. Not even for his dead wife.”

Lisa reaches over and puts a hand on the other girl’s arm. “Jennie.”

“Sorry,” Jennie says and Lisa feels her relax a bit under her touch.

“Don’t apologize. Are you okay?” Lisa asks because Jennie never talks about stuff like this and Lisa is always too afraid to push, too afraid of prying too much and scaring Jennie away. So she nods when Jennie says that she’s fine (Lisa doesn’t really believe her) and starts eating her dinner which is frankly fantastic - Jennie tells her she still has a limited repertoire when it comes to cooking but what she does know how to cook, she cooks really well. Lisa has half a mind to introduce her to her dad.

They’re mostly quiet for the rest of their meal, except for the sounds coming from the TV and Jennie’s occasional comments about the show and Lisa sits there, burning with the questions she wants to ask and all the comfort she wants to give.

“You know,” Lisa says later a little nervously as Jennie finishes wiping down a glass. “I’ve never asked how your mom died.”

“Car accident,” Jennie says as she puts the glass inside the cabinet then turns around to face Lisa. “She was, uh, driving me to a friend’s house for a sleepover. The driver of the truck that hit us was going too fast.”

“Jesus Christ, you were with her?” Lisa asks, horrified.

Jennie nods and Lisa kind of hates herself for not asking about this sooner. “She died before they could get us out of the car. I broke a leg and had to stop ballet.”

“I didn’t know, I’m so sorry,” Lisa says, leaning back on the kitchen counter.

Jennie shakes her head and gives Lisa a weak smile. “Don’t be. I’ve had years of very expensive therapy to help me deal with it.”

“Come here,” Lisa sighs and pulls Jennie closer to her. The shorter girl immediately wraps her arms around Lisa’s waist and buries her face on her chest. It makes Lisa smile, reminding her why Jisoo is so fond of calling Jennie a dumpling, and it calms down, even for a bit, the part of her that has been a complete mess ever since she received those texts from Sooyoung. But now really isn’t the time to think about that or talk about that with Jennie. Her romantic drama can wait.

“I missed you,” Jennie says after a few beats of silence, her voice slightly muffled by the taller girl’s sweater. “Do you want to sleep over?”

“Sure,” Lisa answers automatically, her thumbs drawing circles on Jennie’s back. She was planning on sleeping over anyway. “You gonna lend me some PJs again?”

Lisa feels Jennie shake her head. “No, I’m letting you sleep in your jeans. Or in your underwear, if that’s what you like.”

“You trying to get me naked, Kim?”

Jennie hits her lightly on the stomach, making the Thai girl laugh. “Why do you have to be an asshole, like, 55 percent of the time?”

“You like it when I’m being an asshole,” Lisa grins, waggling her eyebrows.

Jennie rolls her eyes and offers a hand to the younger girl. “You’re incorrigible. Come on, let’s get ready for bed. I know you’re jet lagged.”

Lisa takes Jennie’s hand. “Can I sleep in your room?”

“Why?” Jennie asks, raising an eyebrow.

Lisa shrugs. “Because I missed you too.”

Jennie smiles, that smile with her gums peeking out and that reminds Lisa of their day at the beach, and leads the way to her bedroom, never breaking her hold on Lisa’s hand.

―

“You’ve never mentioned you did ballet before,” Lisa says later, still unable to sleep despite the late hour and her exhaustion. Jennie’s facing her as she cuddles this pillow between them and her eyes are closed but Lisa knows she’s still awake too.

“It never came up,” Jennie replies. “It’s not important anyway.”

“It is. I told you about my hip-hop crew days, right?” Lisa chuckles lowly. “Do you miss it?”

Jennie hums, her eyes now open and glinting from what little moonlight managed to get through the room’s thick curtains. “I guess I do sometimes. And I still love watching ballet performances.”

“But?”

Jennie shrugs. “Sometimes you grow out of stuff. Sometimes you figure into an accident that kills your mom and all your ballerina dreams. Sometimes it’s both.”

Lisa frowns and moves closer to Jennie so that their knees and the tips of their fingers are touching. “I’m sorry.”

“You really should stop saying that,” Jennie says. “I love what I’m doing now, more than I’ve ever loved dancing. And I still do dance sometimes, my leg healed pretty okay. More contemporary than ballet though.”

“You do?”

Jennie nods. “When I have time. My friend’s house has a ballet studio. I go there sometimes since she lives in Japan anyway.”

The Thai girl chuckles because of course Jennie has a friend who has a goddamn ballet studio in their apartment. “I’d love to see you dance someday.”

“Not before I see you dance first,” Jennie says. “And not just on those videos you showed me. You’re an amazing dancer and it would be an honour to see you dance in person.”

“Well, I have dance classes with Seul,” Lisa replies, feeling herself blush a little because of Jennie’s words. “You can drop by some of them when you’re not too busy revolutionizing the tech world.”

“I’ll make time,” Jennie giggles, flicking Lisa’s nose and sticking her cold toes on Lisa’s calf under the comforter and making the other girl squeal.

“Jennie!” Lisa complains, squirming and tugging the comforter tighter around herself. It smells like fabric conditioner, Jennie’s favorite peach-scented lotion, and a strong hint of Chanel Chance - it smells like Jennie in short, and it’s the most relaxed and comfortable the younger girl has been since before she left for the States. “Why aren’t you wearing socks?”

Jennie laughs but doesn’t answer. She pulls her feet away, hitching her thighs around the pillow she’s cuddling. It’s dark but her eyes are so alive, gleaming with mirth and mischief - the way Lisa always wants to see them.

“You’re one of the strongest people I know, you know that right?” Lisa asks the other girl after a few seconds of silence spent staring at each other.

Jennie smiles so softly and it makes Lisa wonder how she was able to go by four days without seeing it in person. “No.”

Lisa pokes Jennie’s side and lets her hand stay there, feeling Jennie’s warmth on her palm. “Well, now you do.”

―

It’s 3:39 am according to the clock on Jennie’s nightstand and Lisa is still awake.

Jennie’s already asleep next to her, her breathing steady and even, and Lisa wants so badly to fall asleep too. 

She wants, with all that she has, to rip off the pillow between her and Jennie and toss it to the ground so she could hold her like she did the last time they slept on one bed. 

She wants, more than anything, to not think about how she left things at New York with Chaeyoung, about how she saw Chaeyoung - beautiful in an emerald green dress and fitting in New York like a glove - for the first time in over a year and how the first thing she did was run away.

Back to Seoul. Back to Jennie and all the confusing feelings Jennie has been so hellbent on making her feel.

She wants to wake Jennie up and tell her about everything, help her make sense about everything.

“I saw Rosie in New York and she’s still so beautiful,” Lisa admits quietly. “But I ran away. Her best friend invited me to hang out and I went there but I chickened out the last minute. I wasn’t... I’m not ready.” 

She watches Jennie’s face for a few seconds, expecting some kind of reaction or even just a twitch, but it’s still as calm as ever. Lisa sighs and wiggles herself closer to the other girl. “This is so fucking stupid, sorry.”

“Good night, J,” she says a little later when her eyes finally become heavier, unaware that when her fingers eventually loosen their hold on her hips, the girl beside her will open her eyes, chest hammering in equal parts heartache and shock.

―

It’s almost noon when Lisa wakes up a few hours later. Jennie isn’t beside her anymore but there’s a note from her taped on the comforter.

_hiiii, i went to work. help yourself to whatever food you can find in the fridge and pantry. there’s still coffee pods of that french roast you like. hope your jetlag isn’t too bad. don’t forget to lock up when you leave. see you soon, thanks for the cookies :) - J_

Lisa tucks the note inside her pajama pocket. She reaches over to grab the pillow Jennie was cuddling last night, ignores the slight disappointment she feels with not waking up next to Jennie, and tries to fall asleep again.

―

Jennie spins and spins, extends her legs and her arms, pushes her body like she hasn’t in literal years. She’s rusty and sloppy and imprecise, her body moving more out of instinct than actual choreography, but she doesn’t care. She’s been at it for almost two hours now - her sports bra and shorts are soaked with sweat and her feet are aching but she wills her body to move, Lorde’s voice soothing her and guiding her through her steps.

_“I know that it's exciting, running through the night, but every perfect summer's eating me alive until you're gone”_

Sixteen years ago she lost her mom and almost lost her life and the ability to do _this_ again. She forgets about the sight of her mother’s headstone from this morning and the sense of utter helplessness she feels whenever she sees it and instead focuses at the feel of her toes on the floor, at the slide of her feet, the swing of her arms, the turn of her hips.

She loses herself in the music and she falls to her knees on the floor when it’s all over, panting and maybe even possibly crying, but she feels better and lighter than she has all day. She probably wouldn’t be able to walk properly tomorrow, but that’s fine.

―

Lisa calls a few minutes after she takes her shower. Jennie lets it ring and stares at Lisa’s name flashing through her screen.

She’s not even mad that Lisa went to see Chaeyoung in New York, she has no right to be, she knows that all too well, but it still stings all the same.

She presses the red button before she can change her mind, and goes to Mina’s closet to look for a shirt.

―

Lisa’s stubborn though so she texts her later that night.

_Lisa 10:53 pm  
‘You’re okay, right?’_

Jennie hugs her pillow as she reads the text.

_10:56 pm  
‘I’m okay, Lisa.’_

And she means it. Kind of. She’s fine.

_Lisa 10:57 pm  
‘That’s good’_

_’Good night, Jennie.’_

Jennie turns off her phone and shuts her eyes. The space next to her still smells a little like Lisa’s perfume.

―

Jiyong wants a member of the staff to attend a five-day conference in Hong Kong.

Jennie volunteers to go and doesn’t tell any of her friends, not even Jisoo.

Lisa calls her on her second night there as she’s walking alone along Temple Street aimlessly, lost among the tourists and the locals and the merchants trying to sell their wares and their food.

Jennie sighs and presses answer this time. She hasn’t heard Lisa’s voice in more than a week. “Hello,” she greets a little loudly to make herself heard among the chatter and noise of the night market.

“Hi,” Lisa says sounding as if she didn’t actually expect Jennie to pick up. Jennie feels a sharp pang of guilt in her gut. “Are you out?”

“Yes, but I’m just walking around the night market so it’s fine,” she answers as she passes by a group of French people arguing with a street vendor. “What’s up?”

“I didn’t know you were out of the country,” Lisa says. “Jisoo just told me, your sister told her.”

“Oh, sorry. It was a little last minute,” Jennie clears her throat. The pang of guilt intensifies. “I’m just attending a conference for Jiyong.”

“A conference? Sounds boring,” Lisa says and Jennie can’t help but laugh. “Are you at least enjoying the sights?”

Jennie considers the question. “Yeah,” she answers. “I’ve always liked Hong Kong. It’s so colourful and alive and it reminds me of all those Wong Kar Wai films I used to watch in college.”

There’s a slight rustle of sheets at Lisa’s end. It’s almost 11 pm in Seoul, one hour ahead of Hong Kong. Jennie imagines her lying in bed, probably with Luca sleeping beside her. “I’ve never been.”

“I’ll take you someday,” she says absently. She means it though. If Lisa will let her.

“You will? Will you take me on those ferry boats?” Lisa asks seriously.

Jennie lets out breath and looks around, wondering if the hundreds of people around her can see on her face how she feels. Does it show on her face?

Can people tell she’s in love?

(She’s in love with Lisa and maybe it’s time to finally admit that, at least to herself.

Where exactly has pretending otherwise gotten her?)

“I’ll take you anywhere.”

―

Lisa opens her laptop after Jennie hangs up more than half an hour later.

She Googles some of Wong Kar Wai’s films, and settles on her bed with Luca to watch Chungking Express.

(Leo’s with Seulgi because he’s a dirty traitor).

She wants to see what Jennie’s seeing right now.

 _“I thought we'd stay together for the long haul, flying like a jumbo jet on a full tank. But we changed course,”_ one of the characters says later.

Lisa thinks of Chaeyoung. 

She exits the tab and looks for another film.

―

“Hey, stranger,” a familiar voice says one Monday afternoon in late October, making Jennie look up from her laptop where she’s finishing a presentation for Jiyong. Her eyes widen in pleasant surprise, almost squealing in excitement when she sees who it is.

“Oh my God,” Jennie exclaims, jumping out of her seat and crossing the room quickly to throw herself into the arms of the woman standing by her office’s door frame. “Oh my God, you’re here!”

“Oof,” Mina Myoui grunts as Jennie tackles her in a bear hug. “Someone’s excited to see me.”

“Of course I am,” Jennie huffs as she pulls away and takes a look at her friend. “I haven’t seen you since January.”

“And whose fault is that, hm?” Mina asks as she pokes Jennie’s nose. “I keep telling you to go to Osaka to visit but you’re too busy being a slave to the corporate machine.”

“Okay, Miss Swan Lake Marx,” Jennie rolls her eyes. “How long are you here for anyway? God, you didn’t even give me an ‘I’m in your city’ text as a heads up. I expected better from you.”

“Just a week, maybe. I have some meetings to attend,” Mina replies a little regretfully as she takes off her beret and runs a hand through her brown hair. “And of course I didn’t, it would ruin the surprise.”

“You and your surprises,” Jennie shakes her head, remembering all the times Mina has pulled stunts like this - surprise visits in Auckland and New York, surprise Christmas presents sent all the way from Japan, that surprise birthday party she threw a few years back... 

“Did you come straight from Osaka?”

Mina shakes her head. “No, actually, I was in Milan, then California, then here. In a span of a week. I’m, like, dead on my feet right now but I wanted to see you.”

“Aw babe,” Jennie frowns in concern. “You should get some rest, we can get dinner later if you’re free. I’ll pick you up?”

“I’d like that,” Mina answers as she rests her forehead on Jennie’s sternum. Jennie brings a hand on the back of Mina’s head and tangles her fingers on silky hair. “Around eight-ish?”

“Yeah, that works. Come on,” Jennie says, patting Mina’s hip. “I’ll walk you out so you can go home and get some sleep. I borrowed your Princess Peach shirt when I was there last month by the way, so you won’t find it in your closet.”

“How dare you,” Mina gasps, letting Jennie link their arms together and lead her out of the office.

―

They have dinner and too many drinks that night and end up taking an Uber back to Mina’s place.

Mina kisses her in the kitchen, tasting of red wine and the apple pie they split for dessert, and Jennie is hit with a wave of nostalgia, remembering the first time they did this - they were 17 and in Jeju with Nayeon and Jisoo. She and Jongin were on a break. It was past midnight and they were alone on the beach, their hands warm on each other’s sides.

It was Jennie’s first kiss with a girl.

(She and Jongin get back together a week later. Mina doesn’t answer her calls for a month).

Now they’re 24 and Jennie’s in love with someone who’s in love with someone else and God knows what’s going on inside Mina’s mind, but right now, Mina’s palm is hot on her thighs and Jennie is gasping into her mouth as she leads them to the bedroom.

Right now they have each other and maybe nothing else matters.

―

“I used to count the moles on your face and your neck, you know,” Jennie says sleepily later. “When we were younger and had sleepovers, you remember how much I stared at your face? I counted them again and again so I could fall asleep. And then in Cologne too when we were there.”

Mina chuckles deeply, slipping her bare legs between Jennie’s. “How many are they?”

Jennie shrugs. “I forgot. Many. 3000.”

Mina laughs and places a quick peck on Jennie’s lips. “Silly baby.”

It’s so easy with Mina, Jennie thinks as the Japanese girl seeks her waist and pulls her closer for an embrace. Her arms are so warm and safe and so, so _familiar_ that it almost makes Jennie cry. 

She plays with Jennie’s hair the way she used to, slowly lulling her to sleep. She tells Jennie all about the dance studio and her niece and about Rei and the mug she bought Jennie from her quick trip to LA and...

Maybe Jennie can be happy with this again. Maybe they can try, for real this time.

Jennie almost wants to ask her to stay.

Almost.

―

“I like someone,” Mina declares the next morning over breakfast as she pours some milk over her cereals.

“What?” Jennie says, looking up from her scrambled eggs and toast in surprise.

“I like someone,” Mina repeats, a little louder this time. “Someone from back home.”

“No, I heard you, oh my God,” Jennie exclaims in genuine delight. Mina hasn’t talked about liking someone since they were 20. “Who is she?”

“A choreographer I met for the studio,” the Japanese girl replies, smiling as she pulls up a chair beside Jennie. “I’m not telling you her name, you’re going to stalk her.”

“Of course I am, that’s what friends do,” Jennie scoffs but her face tightens in worry when she remembers what happened last night. “Oh no, why did we sleep together then? What the fuck, Mina,” she says, hitting the girl beside her on the arm. “Did you cheat on her?”

“What, no! Hardly,” Mina rolls her eyes. “She has a boyfriend. I told her I like her but she’s not ready to break up with him just yet.”

“Oh, that’s...” Jennie frowns.

“Pathetic?”

“I was going to say a little relatable,” Jennie shrugs before taking a sip of her coffee. “But sure, that too.”

Mina grins over the rim of her own coffee cup and nudges Jennie’s legs with her foot. “You like someone with a boyfriend too?”

“Someone with an ex-girlfriend they’re still in love with,” Jennie replies, and it surprises her how easily she’s talking to Mina about this. Jisoo tries to talk about her feelings for Lisa every once in a while, but the older girl says it’s like pulling teeth. Jennie can’t even deny that.

Maybe because Jisoo is disgustingly loved up and can’t empathize. 

“Oh God,” Mina grimaces in sympathy. “Shit, Jennie.”

“Tell me about it,” the older girl groans, shaking her head.

“At least they’re an ex though.”

“You wanna homewreck them?” Jennie asks, only semi-joking. “I know you don’t like getting your hands dirty but I and Nayeon and maybe even Jisoo can hatch a plan to break your girl and her boyfriend up.”

“That’s weirdly sweet but I’m going to have to say no,” Mina laughs as she reaches over and slides coffee-warmed fingers under Jennie’s shirt. “Thank you for offering, though.”

“We’re a mess,” Jennie squirms as Mina presses her fingers on her sides and swipes over her tummy with a thumb.

Mina hums in agreement. “We’ll figure it out,” she says, kissing Jennie’s cheek and pulling her hands away. “We always have.”

Jennie nods and goes back to her breakfast. She hopes Mina’s right.

―

Lisa meets Mina two nights later at a dinner at Nayeon’s house.

They hit it off surprisingly well, exchanging stories about their contrasting dance histories and about Japanese and Thai culture. Lisa delights Mina with her surprisingly not-entirely-terrible Japanese, and they find common ground in Nintendo Wii, with both of them being big fans of Super Smash Bros.

(“Super Smash Bros and Wii Sports are the only games she plays and she plays them on my console,” Jisoo scoffs in disgust when she overhears them. “She cheats on them half the time. She’s a fraud, Myoui. She thought Minecraft was a Hogwarts subject. I’m your only gamer friend here.”

“Hey I’m a gamer too,” Jennie protests.

“You only play Overwatch, you fucking normie. And that’s only because I literally threatened to bleach your hair in your sleep if you didn’t play with me,” Jisoo counters viciously. “You don’t know the struggle of real gamers.”

Jennie shuts her mouth after that. She really should’ve just sat there and ate her food).

Jennie makes a game out of sneaking glances at Lisa as she speaks. It’s beautiful how confident and in her element she is, her hands and her eyes dancing as she deftly talks about Fashion Week, the merits of film photography, and the importance of shrimp paste in Thai cooking.

At one point, Jennie becomes so caught up in Lisa that she doesn’t notice a smug and knowing Mina watch her play her little game.

―

Mina and her team up for Monopoly and the Japanese girl gets uncharacteristically clingy during the game, snaking an arm around Jennie’s waist to pull her closer and nuzzle her hair.

Joohyun tells them to get a room and Jennie smirks, flipping her off.

She becomes too busy bargaining with Nayeon and Jisoo for their hotel and doesn’t notice Lisa observing them, looking away regretfully when Jennie absently presses a kiss to Mina’s temple.

―

(Mina notices though. Again).

―

“You’re being very stupid, Jennie,” Mina declares once they pull up in front of the Japanese girl’s house.

Jennie turns off the engine and regards the other girl with confusion. “Excuse me?”

“You’re being very stupid,” Mina repeats.

Jennie scoffs at the sudden attack on her intellect. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t told her, have you?” Mina asks.

“Told what to who?” Jennie shoots back, getting more confused by the second. “I don’t know what we’re talking about, Mina.”

“Lisa,” Mina replies and Jennie stiffens at the name. “She’s the girl, isn’t she? The one you like.”

Jennie’s first instinct is to deny everything and get home as soon as she possibly can but Mina has always proven herself to be too smart and too observant to fall for her bullshit so she deflates and heaves out a defeated sigh. “It doesn’t matter, Mina,” she mutters.

“Of course it does.”

“It doesn’t,” Jennie insists. 

“Why?” Mina asks. “Because you think she’s still in love with her ex?”

“I don’t think, I know.”

“Well, I think she likes you too,” Mina reveals. “I saw the way she looked when we were all cuddly while playing Monopoly. She looked like I stole her cats.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, she’s pouty and has Bambi eyes,” the older girl says, crossing her arms as she feels her throat tightening up. She doesn’t want to entertain Mina’s words, she doesn’t want to give herself false hope. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Mina sighs like she’s dropping the subject but she doesn’t make a move to get out of the car. “It would be so easy, you know,” she says after what seems like hours of silence. “It would be so easy for you to get out this car and go with me inside. You could stay the night again. We could try a relationship even after I fly back to Japan. We would could even be happy, Jennie. It would be easy.”

“Mina...”

“But we would be hiding. We would be settling,” Mina continues. “Deep down, we’d know that that’s not what we really want. That we could be happier.”

Jennie tightens her grip on the steering wheel but lets Mina finish.

“Running away from her, using work and other people to distract yourself from her... that’s never gonna work.” 

Mina pauses and weighs her next words. “Don’t be so scared of her breaking your heart that you can’t see you’re already breaking it on your own by letting these feelings fester inside you.”

“Better break my own heart than have her do it for me,” Jennie says hollowly.

“No, honey,” Mina says as she unbuckles her seatbelt and turns Jennie’s face towards her. “Self-inflicted heartbreak is the worst kind of heartbreak,” she smiles sadly, wiping the tears threatening to spill down the other girl’s cheeks. “Trust me, I would know.”

―

Jennie drives over to Lisa and Seulgi’s apartment after her and Mina’s conversation, against all her instincts to just go home and hide and pretend what she feels for Lisa isn’t already killing her from the inside out.

“Do you want to take a walk with me?” she asks as soon as Lisa opens the door. 

Lisa regards her for a moment before nodding. “Sure, let me just get my coat.”

―

“Mina’s home?” Lisa asks as soon as they get to the entrance of the park, the same one they visited a few months back. It’s the first thing either of them has said since they started walking and Jennie nods in response.

“Yeah, I just dropped her off.”

“Are you...” the younger girl starts but then sighs and shakes her head. “Did you want to talk about something?”

“I - ” Jennie hesitates. She wants to talk about a lot of things. She wants to tell Lisa a lot of things she’s not sure she’s allowed or ready to tell her.

Jennie settles for “I haven’t seen you much the past month,” and she’s immediately annoyed with herself once the words come out of her mouth because that’s on her. She’s the one who has thrown herself at work the past month, the one who’s ignored half of Lisa’s calls and messages - because that’s what she does. That’s what she’s good at. 

It’s embarrassing because she thought she’s made some sort of progress but no, she’s practically back to square one.

“I texted you last week about the dance class so you could watch if you wanted but you were probably busy,” Lisa shrugs sadly and it just makes Jennie want to hit herself in the face more. “You’ve been busy this month, it’s fine.”

“I’m sorry,” Jennie says stupidly.

Lisa knocks their shoulders together and gives her a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, there will be other dance classes. And I know you need your space sometimes.”

Jennie just nods, frustrated with herself, and follows Lisa as the younger girl leads them deeper into the park.

―

They pass by the rose garden.

The roses are still beautiful but there’s a brittle quality to them that wasn’t there when they last visited. 

Maybe it’s the dropping temperature, Jennie thinks. It’s the middle of fall, after all.

She tries not to look at Lisa’s face.

They keep walking.

―

They end up in front of the fountain.

“You know, you never told me what your wish was,” Lisa says teasingly, glancing at Jennie. The area surrounding the fountain is well-lit by both the moon and the lampposts and Jennie can see the coins at the bottom of the pond. She wonders where her coin is. Probably already covered by the coins of the people who came after them.

“I told you it wouldn’t come true if I told you,” Jennie reminds her.

“Did it come true?” Lisa asks, looking properly at Jennie now.

Jennie thinks of what she wished for then.

“No,” she says sadly. “How about yours?”

“Yeah,” Lisa breathes out. “I just wished for me to be happier, you know?”

“And you are?” Jennie asks, stepping a little closer to Lisa. “Happier?”

“Yes,” Lisa smiles, warm and sincere. It’s one of Jennie’s favorite things. Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens and Lisa Manoban smiling at her like she’s the only thing that matters in the world. “I am.”

Jennie smiles back. “I’m glad.”

“Are you and Mina...” Lisa speaks after minutes of them just looking at the fountain. “Are you two together?”

Jennie freezes at the question. “No,” she answers shortly. 

“I thought you were,” Lisa shrugs. “Kinda looked like it earlier.”

“We just... she’s just... she’s here,” Jennie says, and she can feel her walls coming up. “She’s here, okay? And we both needed someone. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“No, I know,” Lisa frowns. “Sorry, I was just...”

“You were what?” Jennie asks. “Curious?”

A beat of silence where Lisa just stares at Jennie as if considering something, and then the younger girl shakes her head. “Jealous.”

Jennie processes Lisa’s words and maybe she’s being dramatic but she feels the plane of her existence shift.

She gapes at the other girl disbelievingly, her heart pounding so hard in her chest she thinks she might pass out. “You’re fucking kidding me,” she grits out maybe a little too harshly.

“I’m not,” Lisa says in a small, slightly hurt voice. Jennie tamps down the surge of guilt that rises up within her.

“You have...” Jennie starts, swallowing down her tears. Why does Lisa have to do this? “You have no right to be jealous, Lisa.”

“I know.”

“You’re in love with your ex,” Jennie says, rubbing at her eyes with the heel of her palm because she is not going to cry in front of Lisa. That can come later, when she’s alone and in bed. “And I’m just... I’m just your friend who holds you sometimes when you cry. So no, Lisa. You don’t get to be jealous.”

“Jennie - ”

“You want to know what my wish was?” Jennie interrupts, not giving Lisa the chance to say anything else. “I basically wished on that fucking fountain not to fall in love with you. I did everything I can not to, save actively pushing you out of my life because I... I think that would actually ruin me. I tried avoiding you, I drowned myself in work, I slept with other people, told myself whenever we hung out that we’re just friends and that I should hold myself back.”

Lisa looks at her with wide, surprised eyes but doesn’t say anything.

“All that because I knew you didn’t feel the same and that my feelings were going nowhere. And it’s _so_ exhausting,” Jennie says, her voice breaking at the last syllable. “It’s so exhausting holding myself back from you.”

Lisa is still quiet.

“I’m sorry, this is ridiculous,” Jennie says, her shoulders sagging. Naive of her to expect Lisa to actually say something about her random emotional outburst. “You told me you were jealous and I basically feelings-vomited all over you, it’s pathetic. I shouldn’t have said anything, I’m so-”

That’s when Lisa takes a step towards her, cups her jaw, then kisses her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last time i updated the ktl teasers weren’t even out yet lmfao im so so sorry for the very delayed update, life has been Busy and i’ve had terrible writers block. this really isn’t my favorite chapter, i mostly wrote it while shaking off the writer’s block, but lemme know what u think mwah.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She kisses her like they’re running out of time.

Lisa is kissing her.

Jennie freezes at first, her brain unable to really process what’s going on, but the way Lisa’s kissing her - slow and sweet and soft - snaps Jennie out of her trance. She spurs into action, her hands finding Lisa and her senses dulled and heightened at the same time as they keep kissing - she can’t hear anything but Lisa’s pleased little hum as Jennie captures her bottom lip; can’t see anything except the proverbial fireworks branded against her eyelids; can’t smell anything except Lisa’s perfume; can’t feel anything but Lisa’s lips sliding against hers and Lisa’s fingers dancing on her jaw and neck; can’t taste anything except _Lisa, Lisa, Lisa._

And Jennie thinks this is exactly the kind of thing she should be running away from, she should pull away before she does something dumb, but how could she when Lisa is kissing her like she means it, like she wants her too?

So Jennie deepens the kiss and pulls her closer instead, one hand on Lisa’s nape, one hand on her hips, and she wonders for quick, sober second how she ever held herself back from this, from _her._

She wonders how she ever could again.

―

Jennie does not know or remember how, but she and Lisa manage to disentangle themselves from each other long enough to make their way back hand in hand to Lisa’s apartment.

“Seulgi’s inside,” Lisa murmurs once they get there, giving Jennie a look.

And yes, maybe Jennie doesn’t know what she’s doing, maybe this is meant to crash and burn around her, but she nods anyway and opens the door of her car for Lisa and starts driving them to her apartment.

If she gets only one chance, if she gets to have Lisa for only one night, then she’ll make it count.

―

Lisa kisses her again in her bedroom.

Jennie knots her fingers in her hair and Lisa presses closer against her, her hands finding purchase under Jennie’s shirt and on her stomach, and the Korean girl’s head _spins_ at the feel of Lisa’s blunt nails scratching down her abs.

“Are you sure about this?” Lisa asks breathlessly, pulling away as she looks at Jennie with wide, urgent eyes, her hands hovering over the buckle of the other girl’s belt. “Jennie, do you want this?”

Jennie stares at Lisa and her kiss-swollen lips and her tousled hair and the smudge of lipstick on her jaw and she’s so beautiful that it breaks Jennie’s heart just a little bit. She breathes out a yes, her thumb skimming the waistband of Lisa’s sweatpants, and nudges her to the bed.

Lisa starts peppering kisses on the hollow of the older girl’s throat after that, her fingers quick and sure and nimble as she takes off her button down and then her jeans and then everything else, and Jennie _wants and wants and wants,_ she’s never wanted anything or anyone else so badly in her life.

―

Lisa’s kisses go lower and the want settles in Jennie’s bones, making her tangle her fingers tighter on Lisa’s hair and tilt her hips further, offering Lisa whatever she wanted.

Lisa takes and takes and when Jennie unravels, it is with Lisa’s name spilling reverently from her lips - like evening prayers, like a confession, like absolution, like wishes made on stray eyelashes, on shooting stars, on _fountains._

Lisa places a cheeky kiss on her hips afterwards, grinning up at her just a little bit smug as she crawls up the other girl’s body, and Jennie is _so, so_ in love with her it’s not even funny. She pulls Lisa by the nape for a heady, heated kiss then flips them over so she can straddle the other girl.

She lets her hands roam Lisa’s body and the other girl groans and gasps when Jennie starts nipping at the expanse of her chest, her collarbone, and her neck, whimpers _‘you feel so good’_ so prettily into her ear when Jennie eventually presses inside her. She kisses her like they’re running out of time, kisses her everywhere like she’s staking her claim. She traces patterns on Lisa’s rib cage with her mouth, mapping Lisa’s abdomen and then her thighs and then higher, anywhere Lisa wants her.

Jennie takes her apart and puts her back together over and over again, trying and failing to swallow Lisa’s moans with a searing kiss. 

She thinks she’ll hear Lisa for the rest of her life.

―

Lisa wakes up to peach-smelling sheets, a little sore and very alone.

There is no note this time but all of their clothes from last night are still on the floor, and she turns her head to the direction of Jennie’s en suite bathroom but everything is still and quiet.

She gets up, brushes her teeth, puts on her sweatpants and a hoodie hanging from the back of the vanity chair - a thick, navy blue one with ‘Columbia’ emblazoned in front. It’s a little worn and faded but putting it on feels like hugging Jennie and Lisa decides it’s her favorite piece of the older girl’s wardrobe.

She finds Jennie a few minutes later in the kitchen, wearing a kimono robe - cornflower blue silk with flamingo embroidery, Lisa remembers it from that morning all those months ago - and sitting on a barstool with a tall glass of orange juice and a bottle of champagne in front of her.

“Is that a mimosa?” Lisa greets with a tentative smile as she walks over to Jennie. “It’s barely nine in the morning.”

Jennie looks at her with unfathomable eyes and shrugs. “Early brunch.”

“That’s just breakfast,” Lisa laughs.

“Maybe so,” Jennie says as she stands up from the stool. “Do you want some? I’ll make you a glass.”

The taller girl meets her halfway and pulls her closer by the waist, her hands resting on the belt that held Jennie’s robe together. 

“That can wait. Why were you up so early?” Lisa asks softly, running her hands up and down Jennie’s waist. “I missed you in bed.”

Jennie sighs and allows Lisa to place a light kiss on her cheek but doesn’t say anything. There’s tension in her shoulders, in the way she holds herself, in the way her fists are clenched like they’re the only thing keeping her from disintegrating. Lisa misses the way Jennie melted against her last night, pliant and soft, the way she clung to her after, her breath warm and heavy on Lisa’s neck. 

“J, what’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” Jennie mumbles as an answer, extricating herself from Lisa. “Everything. Me.”

Lisa frowns. “Tell me.”

“We shouldn't have...” Jennie starts, licking her lips. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

Lisa blinks, a little (a lot) hurt, and steps back just a bit. “Oh,” she says. 

And, because she can’t help herself, “You regret what happened?”

Jennie rubs at her eyes frustratedly and lets out a huff. “I don’t. I could never regret you. That’s the problem, Lisa.”

“What does that mean?” Lisa asks, stepping closer to the other girl once again and reaching out to rest a hand against Jennie’s clavicle, over the mark she’s pretty sure she left there the night before. The other girl leans into her touch for a quick second before putting some distance between them.

“You know what it means,” Jennie returns. “Stop being intentionally obtuse, Lalisa.”

 _Chaeyoung,_ she thinks. “But Jennie, last night - 

“Last night was me being short-sighted and making terrible, terrible decisions,” Jennie chuckles and the sound is grating, almost cruel. Lisa feels the frustration and exhaustion rolling off of the other girl and she wishes they were back in her bed, naked, legs intertwined, and on the precipice of... _something._ Something Lisa doesn’t have a name for but desperately wants. “Last night was me dumb and in over my head. Last night was me reckless and giving in to my emotions and wants and _you_. And you, last night was you... I don’t even know.”

“And today?”

Jennie sighs and presses fingers over her eyes, as if trying to coax out a headache. “This is me terrified,” she rasps. “I’m terrified you’re still in love with her. I’m terrified it could only ever be her for you. I’m terrified I won’t have it in me not to beg you to choose me over her. I’m terrified I can never be her.”

“I’ve never asked you to be!” Lisa snaps, anger suddenly welling up inside her, desperate and gnashing. She wants to reach out and pull Jennie to her, wants to make her understand. “I’ve never asked you to be her, I don’t _want_ you to be her. You aren’t Chaeyoung, but she isn’t you either. Chaeyoung isn’t here, you are.”

“And what if she is? What if she’s here?” Jennie sneers, unperturbed by Lisa’s outburst, her cat eyes flashing in a way Lisa has never seen them. “What if she comes back?”

“What if she doesn’t?”

“Then what?” Jennie shoots back, her words sharp and just a little bit angry. “You’ll settle for me? Make me your consolation prize?”

Lisa’s frown deepens and she shakes her head at Jennie’s words. “You know that’s not fair, Jennie.”

“I don’t know what’s fair between us anymore, honestly,” Jennie scoffs, but she feels traitorous tears pool in her eyes. She blinks them away, hoping Lisa doesn’t notice how she’s just barely holding herself together, how quickly she’s falling apart. “All I know is I can’t get anymore invested than I already am because I’ve spent the entirety of the time I’ve known you listening to you talk through your feelings about her. Holding you while you cried yourself to sleep over her. Listening to you talk about seeing her in New York while you thought I was asleep. And that’s - that’s fine that you’re still not over her, that’s not your fault, but - ”

“You keep saying that as if you know how I feel!” Lisa interrupts her.

“Then _how_ do you feel?” Jennie asks, more desperately pleading than angry now. “Tell me, because I’ve been laying myself bare for you since last night, literally and figuratively, but I still...” 

A pause. 

“I still can’t figure you out,” she whispers. “Why did you kiss me? Why did you take me to bed and touch me like that? Why did you hold me like _that?_ ”

“Like what?” Lisa breathes out, brushing the tips of her fingers on Jennie’s hand.

“I don’t know,” Jennie smiles, and it’s so, so sad and everything about it feels wrong, Lisa thinks. “Like you feel the same way I do, I guess. Or maybe that’s just a figment of my sad, delusional mind because it needed to hold on to something - anything.”

They let Jennie’s words linger between them for minutes, hours, or days, Lisa doesn’t know, but when she finally finds her voice:

“I like you,” Lisa admits quietly. 

“But you’re in love with her,” Jennie says and the words sit heavy on Lisa’s chest. She wants to say something: say _‘no, I’m not, not anymore,’_ which are the words she knows Jennie’s waiting for her to say, but how can she when denying them would feel like not telling the truth, like a cop-out?

But there’s a part of her, bigger than she would like to admit, telling her that confirming them would feel like painting Jennie an incomplete picture, like a betrayal of all she’s been since Chaeyoung left her.

All she’s been since Jennie came into her life.

She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.

Jennie lets out a watery breath, almost a whimper, and Lisa hates herself for being the cause of that sound coming out of Jennie, hates herself even more for the pained look in her eyes.

“Jennie...” Lisa finally says, gently taking Jennie’s wrist, willing Jennie to understand the maelstrom of emotions she feels, how they metamorphose and twist and morph into each other until even she couldn’t recognize them.

She wants Jennie to understand the wounds still on her chest, invisible and barely starting to scar, but she knows Jennie sees them and Jennie understands. Jennie’s always understood.

And that’s why she says:

“Should I wait around until you make up your mind? Is that what you want?”

(Something Jennie knows at the core of her soul: if Lisa asks her hard enough, she will. For however long and however hard, if Lisa asks hard enough, Jennie is going to wait for her, even if everything ends with her picking the broken pieces of herself on her bedroom floor after Lisa chooses someone else).

Lisa shakes her head. “Jennie, I just... I just want us to not be having this fight,” she replies. “I want to go back to bed and sleep and... and make you breakfast for lunch later. I want to not lose you over this.”

Jennie blinks and tugs her wrists away from Lisa.

“Lisa, maybe,” she starts achingly calm but sounding so, so distant even if Lisa needs only to stretch her fingertips to touch her. It’s the exact moment Lisa starts missing her. “Maybe we need some time apart.”

Panic blooms in Lisa’s gut, a choking terror seizing her at the thought of being forced to walk away from Jennie. “Jennie, please don’t make me leave. We can talk about this,” she says, uncaring if she sounds embarrassingly desperate.

“Can you give this to me?” Jennie begs too and Lisa feels her chest clench. “Can you let me deal with this alone?”

“Jennie.”

“Lisa, please,” Jennie whispers under her breath, letting a stray tear run down her cheek. Lisa reaches out to wipe it with her thumb but Jennie stops her with one hand. “Please, please, please, don’t make this harder than it already is.”

Lisa doesn’t move.

“Lisa, can you please leave?”

And Lisa wants to fight, but the tired, defeated look on Jennie’s face stops the words from coming out of her mouth and makes her nod her head and say _‘fine, I’ll leave,’_ that makes her step away from Jennie even if all she wants to do is stay, that makes her mechanically collect her coat and phone and wallet from the couch, then click Jennie’s front door shut and hail a cab in the cold October morning.

Jennie has made up her mind. Lisa has never been good at changing people’s minds. So she leaves and with every step away, it increasingly feels like she left something in that house, in that bed, in that kitchen, with Jennie.

She ignores Seulgi’s questions when she gets home and goes straight to her bedroom, stripping herself of Jennie’s sweater and her sweatpants and looking at her naked form in the mirror. There’s the mark Jennie left on her right breast, the bite mark rapidly ripening into a bruise on her shoulder, the scratch on her hip and her forearm, another mark just below her left ear and then another one on her inner thigh.

She stares and stares at everything Jennie’s given her and feels Jennie lingering on her skin, inserting herself on Lisa’s every pore. She doesn’t realize she’s sobbing until Seulgi barges inside her room with an alarmed look on her face. She immediately wraps Lisa up in her favorite fuzzy blanket and asks what happened and all Lisa could say through her tears is _‘I think she’s in love with me but she made me leave.’_

She cries against Seulgi’s flannel pajamas and she’s been here before, crying over a girl with her best friend’s arms around her, and Lisa thinks there’s no difference between being left behind and walking away if it breaks her heart all the same.

―

Lisa leaves and Jennie is alone again.

She thinks of finishing her mimosa but she reaches for the bottle of champagne instead.

She’s halfway done with it when she realizes it’s the same one she brought for Lisa’s birthday party when they first met, the same one Lisa was drinking when Jennie first got to be alone with her.

She throws the bottle against the wall and watches the amber liquid stain the pristine light blue wallpaper, watches the glittering shards of glass wink at her tauntingly from the kitchen floor.

She takes out the scotch and take a swig straight from the bottle, letting the alcohol dribble down and mix with the blood on her chin where a stray shard of the champagne bottle nicked her. She stumbles into the shower half an hour later, stomach churning and chest throbbing, and lets icy jets of water cascade down her body until she’s shaking, until she feels her teeth chatter, until she’s certain she’ll never be warm again.

―

She ignores the calls from Seolhyun and Mina.

She thinks of calling Lisa and apologizing and begging her to come back, but she stops herself at the last minute and lets her phone die.

She spends most of the day in the guest bedroom, away from her bed and her sheets, away from the clothes she quickly picked up from the floor and put in the laundry basket, away from Lisa’s scent and presence still permeating the air of her room.

Seolhyun finds her there later that afternoon, staring at the white plaster of the ceiling with a half-empty bottle of scotch on the floor.

She berates Jennie for not answering her phone and calls her stupid for drinking her weight in scotch but she holds her little sister’s hair back when she throws up, rubs her back gently, and makes her drink water and brush her teeth, then leads her back to the bed for a nap.

Seolhyun drags her to the kitchen when she wakes up and basically force-feeds her a piece of toast before making her drink two Advils. She orders some gamjatang, bulgogi, and chicken nuggets for dinner and Jennie eats some of the soup and most of the chicken nuggets while listening to Seolhyun talk about her upcoming trip with Taehyung to Japan for New Year and her birthday.

“Do you want to talk about it?” the older Kim asks after dinner.

“Talk about what?”

“It’s not dad, so it’s probably that girl you’ve been mentioning for months now,” Seolhyun says, obviously unwilling to put up with her little sister’s crap. “Why haven’t I met her yet? What was her name again? Lisa?”

Jennie looks away from her sister’s unnervingly shrewd gaze. “No, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What did you do?”

“Why are you assuming it was my fault?” Jennie complains.

“Because I could make a 200-slide PowerPoint presentation on why you’re a dumbass,” she answers with the grin she wholly reserves for annoying Jennie, and the younger girl appreciates how much Seolhyun constantly reminds her that she is actually her big sister and not just her boss and the Vice Chairwoman of South Korea’s most valuable company. “But you know what, if you want don’t want to talk about it - ”

“I don’t,” Jennie interrupts with gritted teeth.

“That’s fine,” Seolhyun shrugs, raising an eyebrow. “You’ll be crying on my or Jisoo’s couch soon enough anyway.”

Jennie huffs but doesn’t say anything.

Seolhyun sighs. “I just want you to be happy, you know that right? And healthy. And not...” she motions to Jennie’s general direction. “Burying your feelings in fifty feet of bullshit and hungover from something I very well know you hate. At least drink something you actually enjoy and try not to die from alcohol poisoning next time.”

Jennie swallows down the urge to cry. “Scotch is disgusting, I don’t know why it’s dad’s favorite,” she croaks out.

(The scotch was an impulse, nostalgia-driven buy - a product of a childhood spent sneaking inside her father’s study room and seeing a bottle of Chivas Regal on the gleaming oak desk every time she entered it. She’s always hated it but it scrubbed her tongue, even for a while, of Lisa’s taste so maybe it has its uses other than making her want to gag her stomach out).

Seolhyun gives her an understanding smile and says _“I know,”_ says she’s sleeping over and doesn’t ask questions when Jennie says they’re both staying in the guest bedroom.

Jennie loves her more than she could ever articulate.

―

Mina calls again the next morning, just after Seolhyun leaves for the office.

“Hey. I’m flying back a day early,” Mina greets her. “There was an emergency at the studio.”

“Is everything okay?” Jennie replies, a little worried as she sits up from the bed.

Mina hums. “Nothing I can’t handle. I’m on my way to the airport now. Jongin’s driving me.”

Jennie sighs, running a hand over her face. “I’m sorry I was MIA yesterday. I wasn’t even able to spend your last day here with you or drop you off at the airport.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Mina says. “Did something happen? You sound... off.”

“I...” Jennie breathes out. _I slept with Lisa and basically kicked her out because I can’t handle getting hurt, I did what you told me not to do._ “Can I tell you some other time?”

“Yeah, of course,” Mina says, her tone understanding. Jennie thinks she doesn’t deserve anyone in her life. “I’ll call you this week, okay?”

“Yeah,” Jennie sighs, plopping herself back down on the bed. Her head still hurts like a bitch. “I miss you already.”

“You too.”

“Text me when you land. Have a safe flight and tell Jongin I said hi,” Jennie says. “I’ll see you on December for Gisele.”

“Okay, I will. Take care of yourself,” Mina returns. “It’s going to be fine, okay? Love you, Nini.”

Jennie breath catches at her throat. Maybe she should’ve just asked Mina to stay, maybe she should’ve just gone inside Mina’s apartment the other night instead of driving away and going to _her._ Maybe she wouldn’t be choking on her own heartbreak right now if she did. “Love you too.”

―

“Have you talked to Jennie yet?” Seulgi asks one morning as she washes her dishes from breakfast. Lisa looks up from where she’s feeding Leo and Luca and glares at her best friend.

“You’ve been asking that every other day the past three weeks,” Lisa replies. “The answer is still no. She’s probably never talking to me ever again.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Seulgi snorts, putting away her plates to dry. “The girl’s in love with you.”

“Maybe she just said that,” Lisa rolls her eyes and focuses on the way Luca’s nipping cutely at her fingers. She sees Seulgi enter her room from the corner of her eye, getting ready to leave. “She was probably just confused. If she really is in love with me she’d be talking to me.”

“Phones work both ways, you know. Don’t be a brat,” Seulgi says from her room. “And besides, she told you she doesn’t want to get involved with a person who’s still in love with someone else. That’s understandable. She’s probably just trying to work through her feelings without you distracting her.”

“But I miss her,” Lisa pouts. Leo’s nose bumps her palm and Lisa smiles a little, giving him a scratch behind his ears.

“Obviously. You’ve been annoyingly sad and broody again. You’re miserable,” Seulgi says, now in the kitchen again. Lisa watches her put on her coat. “But you can fix this. Call her. Or visit her at work. Or at home. Or maybe not at home, you’ll probably jump her.”

“Seulgi!”

“Did I lie though?” Seulgi laughs and grabs her overnight bag from the couch. “Anyway, don’t forget they’re delivering my mom’s birthday present today. Or maybe tomorrow at the latest, I’m not sure. You’ll be home all day, right?”

“Yes, I told you this already,” Lisa says, rolling her eyes again. “I’ll sign for it, don’t worry. Enjoy your night of marathon sex with Miya.”

“You’re so disgusting,” Seulgi wrinkles her nose as she finishes putting on her boots. “But don’t worry, I will. See you tomorrow afternoon at the studio.”

“Whatever. Be safe.”

Seulgi gives her one last wave and heads out the door.

Lisa turns to the two cats staring at her and sighs. “What are we going to do all day, boys?”

―

Lisa’s mindlessly watches the new season of Stranger Things that afternoon, wondering idly if Jennie’s seen it yet.

She stares at her phone while the intro for the third episode plays, willing a phone call or a message or _anything_ from Jennie to come.

 _“Phones work both ways, you know,”_ Seulgi’s words from this morning taunt her, making her release a noise of frustration. She unlocks her phone anyway and goes to Jennie’s contact, because as irritating as Seulgi is, she is also right.

She lets her thumb hover above the call button, contemplating whether to call her or send her a message. 

She’s about to press call when the doorbell rings.

She lets out an annoyed huff and drags herself to the door with Leo trailing behind her, muttering about Seulgi and her package’s bad timing under her breath. She tugs down her hoodie (technically Jennie’s hoodie, she reminds herself) and makes sure she isn’t covered in an embarrassing amount of cat hair.

It’s not a package waiting for her when she opens the door though.

Lisa steps back, her knees almost giving out when she sees who it is.

“Chaeyoung?” she manages to breathe out.

“Lisa, hey,” Chaeyoung says, smiling as if she didn’t break Lisa’s heart and walk out on her, on _them_ , more than a year ago. “Can I come in?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello chaeyoung 😬 thank you for reading, lemme know what you think


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’d fall in love again, inevitably, because Chaeyoung has always been her all’s well that ends well, her happily ever after. Lisa had it all in her head.

They met when they were 13, in a quiet residential street in Seoul.

Lisa and her family have just moved to South Korea for her dad’s job and she’s outside their gate, taking in their street and wondering if she could ask her dad to buy her a bike, when a quiet _‘hello’_ startles her.

Lisa looks to where the voice came from and she finds a girl about her age, holding a ukulele and smiling shyly at her.

 _‘She’s pretty,’_ is Lisa’s first thought. She bows a little jerkily. “Hi.”

“You’re not Korean, are you?” the girl asks in perfect, accented English.

 _'She has a really pleasant voice,’_ is Lisa’s next thought.

Lisa shakes her head. “I’m not,” she mumbles, not very confident with her English. “I’m from Thailand.”

The girl’s eyes brighten. “Well, I’m from Australia. My family and I are here for winter break. I guess were neighbors.” She points to the house just in front of their own. “We live there.”

Lisa narrows her eyes. “Winter break? It’s the middle of summer.”

“Oh, I forgot,” she says sheepishly. “It’s winter in Australia right now.”

“Ah,” Lisa nods her head then offers her hand. “My name is Lalisa. You can call me Lisa though.”

The other girl’s smile widens, her eyes almost disappearing. “You have a nice name,” she says, taking Lisa’s hand and shaking it. “My name is Chaeyoung. You can call me Roseanne or Rosie. Good to meet you, Lisa.”

“Good to meet you too, Rosie,” Lisa replies, trying out the nickname. It falls easily on her tongue. She likes it.

She invites Chaeyoung inside her house and she spends the afternoon watching Chaeyoung learn how to play the ukulele and gulp down glass after glass of her mom’s iced tea.

Lisa has never been the same since.

―

They met when they were 13, in a quiet residential street in Seoul, but it all officially started in the Han River when they were 15.

Chaeyoung has just gotten back from Australia to begin her training and it’s a day before she heads for the dorms so they take their bikes and race to the river, giggling in their beanies and their scarves billowing behind them.

It’s there, under the glare of the late afternoon sun and with the rush of the river on their ears, that Chaeyoung first kisses her.

The kiss is sweet, and so, so certain, the first of many. Lisa falls even more in love with her best friend and asks her immediately to be her girlfriend.

Chaeyoung smiles and kisses her again, pressing her _‘yes’_ into Lisa’s lips.

They were 15 and young and no one could hurt them, or so Lisa thought. 

It becomes their thing. Even during her trainee days, Chaeyoung would sneak out some Sundays just so she and Lisa could go on dates by the river. Sometimes she’d be so tired that she’d fall asleep on Lisa’s shoulder minutes after she gets there but the younger girl never minded.

Call her cheesy or whatever variation of the word, but having her girlfriend there was enough.

Of course, things weren’t so simple and free after Chaeyoung (or Rosé, as everyone now knows her by) debuted, but on her rare free times, she and Lisa would bike there with their masks and hoodies on and talk for hours - about music show performances, Lisa’s first magazine shoot, her first runway walk, song ideas and lyrics, album covers, food, their parents, their fears and anxieties over their careers. About everything, really.

Somewhere along the way, these trips to the river became less and less frequent. Sometimes it’s Lisa that has school responsibilities, or a shoot or a fitting or a runway show. But mostly it’s Chaeyoung who can’t make it. There’s always an event, a concert, a variety show to film, an awards show to attend, and new songs to write and record and help produce.

Lisa always understood. Chaeyoung is chasing her dreams and Lisa promised she’d always have her back.

That’s what they’ve done since they were 13. They’ve always had each other’s backs.

Until they didn’t.

The last time they went there, everything was on the verge of falling apart and Lisa just wanted everything to feel normal again, to feel like _them_ again, even just for an afternoon.

Chaeyoung cancels a concert rehearsal and they bike to the river just like old times and talk about their lives as if nothing is wrong, as if they aren’t breaking each other’s hearts already by pretending that everything was still okay.

They break up two weeks later.

She knows it’s irrational, but for the first few months after Chaeyoung leaves, Lisa still waits for her to show up.

She waits there with apologies on her tongue and the promise of doing better, if Chaeyoung would just come home.

She never did.

Lisa stops waiting.

―

Chaeyoung squirms on the couch and toys nervously with one of the bracelets on her wrist as Lisa silently stares at her.

She’s still blonde like in New York, Lisa notes, her wavy hair parted in the middle and tumbling messily around her shoulders. She sweeps her eyes over Chaeyoung, trying to see the little details of the other girl she’s missed - the small, almost unnoticeable mole below her lips that Lisa has kissed countless times, the little scar on her hairline that she got from a cheerleading accident, the various guitar string scars on her fingers...

Lisa thinks that if she blinks, Chaeyoung will disappear and this will just be one of her weird afternoon nap dreams. She’s had plenty of those the past year, she wouldn’t be surprised if this is one of them.

Lisa clears her throat. “Do you want something to drink?” she asks for lack of something to say.

“Um, water would be fine, thanks,” Chaeyoung says, smiling slightly.

Lisa nods and makes her way to the kitchen to get Chaeyoung some water and get herself some air.

She gets to the kitchen and leans against the sink, her hands curling on its edge. Fuck. Why did she let her in? She should’ve just slammed the door in Rosie’s face and told her to go away, she doesn’t owe her anything. And she clearly isn’t ready for this.

She feels like she might vomit.

She reaches for a glass, the one Seulgi was using this morning, and fills it up with cold water from the fridge. She finishes it in two gulps and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, heaving slightly.  
What do you do when your ex-girlfriend of eight years comes knocking on your door after a year of absence? Where is the manual for this shit?

She still feels like she might vomit.

Lisa reaches for another glass and fills it with room-temperature water this time, because that’s how Chaeyoung has always taken her water. Room-temperature or warm, sometimes with lemon and a dash of honey. For her voice.

She’s by the mantle when Lisa gets back from the kitchen, looking at the pictures there. Lisa used to have pictures of them there too – one of them with Chaeyoung’s first music show award; another taken in Bangkok; a polaroid of Chaeyoung inside a recording booth; a polaroid of them by the Han River.

Seulgi took them all down a few days after Chaeyoung left. Lisa has never asked where she put them.

“I like this one,” Chaeyoung says, pointing to a picture of Lisa on the beach - the one Jennie took a few months ago - and Lisa almost makes a run for the kitchen again because this could _not_ be happening to her right now.

Lisa hands her the glass of water, careful not to let their fingers touch. She hopes Chaeyoung doesn’t notice her slightly shaking hands. Chaeyoung mumbles a quiet thanks and smiles again at Lisa.

“Um, a… friend of mine took it.”

Chaeyoung nods and takes a sip of her water. Lisa follows her with her eyes as she settles back down on the couch. “It’s nice. Your smile looks extra nice there.”

Lisa averts her eyes and leans against the wall, folding her arms over her chest. “Thanks,” she mutters.

“You dyed your hair back to brown,” Chaeyoung observes.

Lisa touches her hair consciously and shrugs. “Yeah, just a few months ago.”

Chaeyoung chuckles a little, her hand still curled around the glass. “I think we were nineteen the last time you were brunette. I’ve always been used to seeing you with blonde hair. Or orange, that one time. It looks really good though.”

Lisa nods, not knowing how to respond. They lapse into another bout of silence, eyes drifting towards everything but each other.  
“Are those your cats?” Chaeyoung asks, breaking the awkward silence. She puts down her glass of water and motions to the two cats staring up at her curiously near Lisa’s feet. She smiles, trying to diffuse the tension.

Lisa frowns, remembering what she told Jennie on that same couch the first time she got Luca.

_‘I guess I just wanted a part of my life she hasn’t touched yet.’_

She moves to open the door of her bedroom. “Inside, boys,” she says, shooing the two cats inside. Leo meows at her angrily, but Lisa ignores him and nudges him gently inside with her foot.

Chaeyoung tries again once Lisa closes the door. “What are their names?”

Lisa wants to laugh because _God,_ this is so strange. Being here, with Chaeyoung in front of her. Chaeyoung struggling to talk to her and even look at her. Chaeyoung not knowing the names of her goddamn cats.

They used to know everything about each other.

Are they strangers now again? She reels a bit at the thought, at the fact that most aspects of her life now, Chaeyoung does not know about.

“None of your business.”

Lisa feels bad for the way Chaeyoung’s face falls but she doesn’t show it.

“I’m sorry,” Chaeyoung says, her eyes sad. 

“I don’t need you to apologize, Chaeyoung,” Lisa sighs tiredly. “I just need… what are you doing here?”

Chaeyoung wrings her hands, her expression uneasy. “I don’t know either, honestly. I had a free day and I…”

“What? You were bored? Thought you’d drop by after a year of absence?” Lisa says, resentful. She can’t help it.

“Is that what you think?”

Lisa shakes her head, getting frustrated. “God, Roseanne. I don’t know what I think, okay? All I know is that we broke up. You left. I’m sorry if I’m confused and not ready to throw a fucking welcome back party for you. Maybe you should - ”

“I saw you in New York,” Chaeyoung says, interrupting Lisa’s impending tirade.

It takes two seconds for Lisa to process her words. “You mean during fashion week? Yeah, I walked Michael Kors.”

“No, outside Pier 17,” Chaeyoung says, shaking her head as well. “After the Coach show. I know Sooyoung invited you to the after party.”

Lisa stares at her in surprise. “You saw me there?”

“I did,” Chaeyoung replies with a sad smile. “You were about to leave, but I saw you.”

Lisa blinks at her.

“You know, I told myself if you didn’t come that I’d let it go. That I wouldn’t bother you anymore, that I’d let you live your life without me,” Chaeyoung continues. “That was the plan because… because I was the one who left, wasn’t I? I was the one who ended things. But I gave myself one last shot that night. If you came, I’d ask if you wanted to try again. If you didn’t, I’d leave you alone. And you came. You were there. You didn’t even show yourself to me and we didn’t even talk but you were there. And I couldn’t leave it alone. I couldn’t leave it alone, Lisa. I have spent the last two months on tour singing the songs I wrote about you and every night I fall asleep in a strange city wondering why you came that night. Wondering if even after I left and broke your heart, maybe there’s something in you that wants to try again too.”

A pause as Chaeyoung weighs her next words.

“So here I am,” she shrugs. “I’m not asking you to take me back, but I’m just… it’s you and me, Lisa. No matter how much I tried to convince myself that I did the right thing by leaving, it’s always been you and me. And maybe you don’t want me anymore but I have to try.”

Lisa thinks that if it was a few months ago, she would’ve given everything to hear those words from Chaeyoung.

Now she’s just mad.

“How dare you,” Lisa grits out, the anger and pain of the past year suddenly coming back in full force, rearing their ugly heads through the venom dripping in Lisa’s voice. “How fucking dare you. You were the one who walked away on that same exact door after I begged you not to. You can’t just walk out of my life then come back a year later and act as if nothing has changed.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?” Lisa snarls. “I almost proposed, Chaeyoung. I was almost on my knees with my mom’s fucking ring and everything. We were twenty-two and not ready at all but I almost proposed because I was desperate to make you stay.”

Chaeyoung gapes at her. “Lisa...”

“You don’t know what you walking away did to me,” Lisa says, hating how her voice cracks at the last word. “Everything, Chaeng… I remembered everything. I didn’t know what to do with the memories, I didn’t know where to put them. I didn’t know where to put the love I still felt for you because you didn’t want it anymore. You didn’t want me anymore.”

“You know wanting you was never the problem, Lisa,” Chaeyoung shakes her head. “I’ve always wanted you.”

“But you left,” Lisa scoffs like a child. She almost wants to stomp her foot on the floor.

“I had to leave if I wanted to salvage anything good between us,” Chaeyoung counters, her voice firm and still infuriatingly steady. “Where do you think we would be right now if we didn’t break up then, if we went on like we have our last few months together? All the times we didn’t talk, all the anger and resentment… we would’ve been buried underneath all of that. We wouldn’t have been able to save anything. We would’ve hated each other.”

Lisa shakes her head in disbelief. “I resented you because you fucking left me, I never resented you while we were together. Never.”

“Really?” Chaeyoung asks. “Not even for the times I couldn’t be by your side like a normal girlfriend should be? For all the cancelled dates? For all the hiding and the fact that you can’t even hold my hand in public? Not even once? How many fights have we had about all of those things?”

“Chaeyoung,” Lisa warns her.

Chaeyoung is not to be deterred though. “What about that time I almost forgot about our anniversary? That time when we didn’t see each other in person for almost three months because I was abroad and so busy and barely had time to sleep, much less to fly back here to see you? Or when that rumor about me and that boy group member came out?”

Lisa frowns, not really wanting to relieve the memory of her opening her phone one morning and seeing pictures of Chaeyoung with a guy. “You know I never believed that, right?”  
Chaeyoung runs both hands over her face and sighs. “I know you trusted me, just like I trusted you. But there was that… that doubt in your eyes. I saw it. It was small and it was quick but it was there. It scared me,” she admits.

They stare at each other for a few moments, a supercut of their last few months together flashing through both of their minds. Them, barely talking and seeing each other. The ‘I love you’s’ said in desperation. The way they spent one of Chaeyoung’s very rare day offs fucking instead of talking, clinging to each other afterwards for hours, afraid of letting go. Lisa alone in the Han River, wondering if Chaeyoung will show up this time. Chaeyoung’s fingers cramped and stained with lead and ink, desperately immortalizing Lisa on the pages of her journals through countless sketches and songs and poems.

(Chaeyoung used to show her everything, used to sing to her the bare-bones start of a song in her ear or on the phone. Not for those last few months though. Chaeyoung kept writing and drawing, but barely showed Lisa anything anymore).

Lisa could never pinpoint the exact moment where it all went wrong, when Chaeyoung decided she’s had enough.

Maybe that’s the point though, maybe there wasn’t one single moment. Not one moment she could pin all her heartbreaks to.

“The last time we slept together, I stared at you after for hours while you were sleeping,” Chaeyoung admits. “I was so scared that we’d wake up one day and realize that we’re not the same people who fell in love with each other anymore. That you’d wake up and realize that you resent me for everything I cannot give to you. We were already falling apart, Lisa and I just - ”

“Chose to walk away,” Lisa cuts her off. “If anyone could have survived everything we went through, it would have been us, Chaeng. We could’ve made it work, we could’ve built ourselves and our relationship back up together. I told you I was willing to try. Because if you have something like what we had, you don’t just give up on it. You fight for it. But you… you chose to give up instead.”

“I chose to let us have room to breathe,” Chaeyoung insists. “We were suffocating, Lisa. You chose to pretend that everything was fine and I went along with it for months because I was terrified of losing you too. But we were not okay, we haven’t been okay for a while at that point. I know you know that, we aren’t those stupidly in love kids with rose-tinted glasses anymore. We have to make hard choices now. If walking away for a while meant I get to save us in the long run then… then Lisa, it would have been worth it.”

“Choices? We have to make hard choices? You decided for both of us, Chaeng,” Lisa says angrily, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. “You decided that it was over, that we weren’t working. Where was my choice in that?”

“Lisa…”

“And anyway, it’s hard to see the silver fucking lining after everything I went through after you left.”

Chaeyoung chuckles sadly. “You don’t think I went through the same things you did? We were together for eight years, Lisa. You think it didn’t kill me to leave you? Whatever you went through, I went through all of that too,” she says quietly, with the weight of everything she felt after the break-up. Lisa doesn’t try to blink away the tears this time, but she looks away and wipes them off quickly with the sleeve of the hoodie. “And I had to pretend to be okay, in front of management, in front of the camera, in front of the fans. I had to sing all of these songs I wrote about you and I had people singing them back to me. I had all of our memories shoved in my face everyday, at home and at work. There was no escape. You think it was easy for me? All I wanted was to come home to you.”

“You could have,” Lisa says, her chest suddenly hurting in all the ways only Chaeyoung can make it hurt. “All those months ago, you could’ve… you could have come home, Chaeng. I wish you did.”

Chaeyoung looks down at her hands. “How about now?” she asks, her voice as vulnerable as Lisa has ever heard it. She looks up at Lisa again. “Can I come home now? Can I come home still?”  
Lisa stares at the girl in front of her, heart on her throat. Isn’t this everything she’s wanted since Chaeyoung walked away?

The Lisa of the past year would’ve said yes. They’d fight some more about Chaeyoung leaving, but eventually, she would have gone to Chaeyoung and held her hand, would’ve tucked Chaeyoung on her side and kissed her head like she used to do back then. She would’ve assured her they’d do better this time and that they’d try harder. They’d take it slow - get to know each other again first and be the best friends they stopped being late into their relationship. And then they’d fall in love like they did back then, only this time they are older and wiser.

They’d fall in love again, inevitably, because Chaeyoung has always been her all’s well that ends well, her happily ever after.

Lisa had it all in her head.

She thinks somewhere along the way, she forgot. Somewhere along staring at another girl while they drove around the city late at night, along spending the night in another girl’s bed and actually liking it, along watching another girl cook while listening to her talk about her day, Lisa forgot.

She thinks she isn’t Lisa of the past year anymore.

She thinks she hasn’t been for a long time.

But still.

This is Chaeyoung, isn’t it? Her first love, her first kiss, her first heartbreak, her first everything. The girl she once held at night and told all of her fears and dreams and secrets to. The girl who saw her grow up, who used to know her inside and out - all the good and the bad of her. The one she made plans with. The one she once said she’d marry.

(‘I’m going to marry you one day,’ Chaeyoung told her one night when they were nineteen. It was three days before her debut and all Chaeyoung wanted was to be surrounded by her parents and her sister and Lisa before everything changes.

The two of them were in Chaeyoung’s childhood bedroom, in her already-too-small-for-them bed: the setting of countless summer sleepovers and where Lisa first told Chaeyoung she liked girls back when they were fourteen. Their bare, lanky legs are all tangled together, their faces inches apart as they waited for sleep to take them.

‘Not if I marry you first,’ Lisa smiled at her.

Chaeyoung took the hand Lisa had on her neck and pressed a kiss on her palm. ‘I hope we make it.’

‘We will,’ Lisa said, quiet and wondrous as she watched Chaeyoung’s eyes flutter shut. ‘It’s you and me.’)

Lisa blinks away the memory. She hasn’t thought of that night in months. She has all of these memories in her head, compartmentalized and tied in neat little ribbons so she wouldn’t be tempted to open them, but they’re all leaking out slowly now that Chaeyoung is in front of her.

She looks away from the other girl’s half-hopeful, half-scared eyes, not knowing what to say.

She feels rather than sees Chaeyoung stand up from the couch and walk over to her, closer and closer until they’re almost touching, until Lisa feels like she can’t breathe.  
Chaeyoung reaches out and touches her wrist and Lisa feels like she’s about to burst into flames.

“Look at me, please.”

Lisa’s eyes snap back to Chaeyoung’s face.

She’s so beautiful, Lisa thinks. She wants to touch her face and make sure this is all real. Make sure she’s really back.

“Lisa,” Chaeyoung says, her voice barely a whisper.

Lisa is reminded of all those times Chaeyoung called her late at night from her dorm, quiet as a mouse so she wouldn’t wake her roommate up; of the way Chaeyoung would say her name after long weeks of not seeing each other, her face buried in Lisa’s neck.

_‘Lisa.’_

_‘Lisa, hey.’_

_‘Lisa, I missed you._

_‘Lisa, I need you.’_

_‘Lisa.’_

Lisa lets out a shuddering breath and takes a step back.

“You should go, Chaeng. I can’t do this. Not right now,” she pleads.

She wants Chaeyoung out, she wants out of the sweater she’s wearing, she wants to be alone.

Chaeyoung takes a step back as well. She stares at Lisa, eyes flitting all over her face and obviously trying to get a read on her. 

Lisa lets her.

Chaeyoung nods after a few seconds. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”

 _‘All I’ve ever wanted was for you to stay,’_ Lisa wants to tell her.

Lisa blinks and suddenly, Chaeyoung is stepping on her space again and wrapping her arms around her. Her chest swirls with a familiar feeling, something she carried and cherished for eight years and tried to forget for the past one. Chaeyoung’s wearing the same perfume she’s worn since they were seventeen and she feels some dormant part of her heart cracking open again. Lisa melts against her, helpless.

Can Lisa really let her go again?

“I missed you,” she whispers in Lisa’s ear before letting Lisa go.

Lisa watches quietly as she collects her things and makes her way to the door.

She turns around as she opens the door. “I’ll be around, Lisa.”

It sounds like a promise, one Lisa isn’t sure she wants Chaeyoung making.

―

Lisa spends the rest of the day frozen in bed, trying not to replay Chaeyoung’s every word, every gesture, every smile.

She thinks about Jennie too, and the guilt almost consumes her.

She thinks about calling her mom but decides against it at the last minute. She would probably take the first flight back to Seoul to be with her and Lisa can’t deal with her mom’s concern right now.

She doesn’t know what to do.

She doesn’t sleep a wink that night.

―

She finds herself the next night in front of Jennie’s apartment.

It’s dark inside and Jennie’s car is nowhere in sight.

Lisa looks at the time and frowns. It’s past eight in the evening.

She drives away, heading to the first place she thinks Jennie is.

―

The guards at Altum Electronics let her in, fortunately, with one of them remembering her from when Jennie brought her there a few months ago.

The executive parking lot is almost empty and she sees Jennie’s sleek, black Audi immediately. She parks next to it and gets out of her own car after, contemplating on whether to wait for Jennie here or go up to her office.

She doesn’t think Jennie will appreciate that though, so she waits beside Jennie’s car. She’s been waiting for almost half an hour, worrying if the older girl has eaten yet and if she should pull up her food delivery app, when the parking lot elevator opens.

Jennie doesn’t see her at first, busy typing something on her phone, and Lisa takes the time to observe her. She’s wearing a white ruffled silk shirt underneath her black coat, her hair a little more tousled than usual. Her ringed fingers are quick as they tap on the screen. Her nails are a bright daisy yellow against the black case of her phone.

She smiles, remembering that one time she painted Jennie’s nails the exact same color.

Jennie looks up then, stopping in her tracks when she sees Lisa with a clear look of surprise and something else that Lisa can’t quite identify on her face. She quickly schools her expression into something more neutral, pocketing her phone as she walks to her car.

Lisa knows she missed her but she didn’t know how much until this moment.

“Hello,” Lisa greets timidly.

“Hey,” Jennie greets her back, her tone also unsure. “What are you doing here?”

“Can we...” Lisa says, trying to will her nerves down. It’s just Jennie for fuck’s sake. “I think we need to talk. Can we talk?”

Jennie looks at her for a moment, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. Lisa tries not to stare. “Sure,” she finally says. “Follow me to the apartment.”

―

Jennie goes straight to the fridge and takes out a tupperware of what Lisa thinks is kimchi fried rice, sticking the whole thing inside the microwave after.

Lisa frowns. “You haven’t eaten dinner yet,” she says, more a statement than a question.

Jennie shrugs, her back turned to the younger girl as she takes out some plates and utensils. “I was at the office.”

Lisa sighs. “It’s late.”

“Yeah, I know. I have a watch,” Jennie says as the microwave beeps. She takes out the tupperware and divides the rice on two separate plates, putting one in front of Lisa and handing her chopsticks and a spoon. Lisa’s already had dinner with Seulgi and Miya after the dance class, but who is she to say no to Jennie’s kimchi fried rice?

“You said we need to talk. What do we need to talk about?” Jennie asks, finally looking up. Lisa frowns at the dark circles under her eyes, evident under the lights of the kitchen.

“You look tired,” she mutters in concern.

Jennie chews on her dinner and snorts, looking all kinds of amused. “You want to talk about how shitty I look right now?”

Lisa frown deepens. “I never said that, you don’t look shitty.”

“Right,” Jennie chuckles. “So what is it we need to talk about? Surely it’s not my eye bags.”

“That can wait,” Lisa says, picking up her chopsticks. She gestures to Jennie’s food. “You should finish your dinner first.”

―

Jennie takes out a bottle of Hibiki after dinner and Lisa gives her a disapproving look as she pours herself two fingers of it.

“I’m not a budding alcoholic, don’t worry. It’s been a long day is all,” Jennie rolls her eyes. “And honestly, I can’t deal with you 100% sober.”

Lisa ignores that last part. “You shouldn’t be working for twelve hours, J.”

Jennie takes a little sip of her drink and walks over to the fridge, pulling something from inside. “And you shouldn’t be telling me what to do but you do it anyway,” she retorts. “I’d offer you some whiskey but you’re driving later, so.” She hands Lisa a cold bottle of chocolate milk. It’s Lisa’s favorite brand. “Here, knock yourself out.”

Jennie makes her way to the couch with Lisa following her and it feels just like one of those random nights they’ve spent eating dinner together and watching whatever Jennie felt like watching on Netflix.

But it isn’t just like one of those nights because everything has changed between them, hasn’t it?

Jennie settles herself on the couch. Lisa sits on the armchair, sipping her chocolate milk. 

“So,” Jennie starts, stretching her legs in front of her. “What did you want to talk about?”

“You know what,” Lisa mutters.

“What?” Jennie says, giving her a grin. “Is it the sex or the morning after?”

Lisa feels the tip of her ears warm. She grips her bottle of chocolate milk, wishing Jennie gave her some whiskey instead. “Jennie.”

Jennie drums two fingers against the rim of her glass. “We can pretend it never happened, you know. Go back to how things were. We never have to talk about it.”

Lisa scoffs. She knows Jennie doesn’t mean it. “You think I can do that? It’s all I’ve been able to think about the past three weeks.”

The older girl looks at her seriously. “Me too.”

“You said... you said you needed to deal with things by yourself. How is that going?”

“As well as it could be going,” Jennie shrugs before taking another sip of her drink.

Lisa sighs. Jennie’s working twelve-hour work days, clearly it’s not going well. “I never should’ve left that morning. I never should have said some of the things I did. I should’ve fought with you harder. I’m sorry. ”

“I don’t think I would’ve let you,” the other girl smiles sadly.

“You’re not... you’re not a consolation prize, you know?” Lisa tells her, fumbling a little with her words. But she means it. She’s never meant anything more in her life. She could only hope Jennie would believe her. “Or someone I settle for because I can’t have the one I really want. It’s never been like that.”

Jennie considers the words for a moment, staring at her intensely. “Lisa.”

Lisa almost looks away from the weight of Jennie’s gaze, but she doesn’t. Jennie deserves that much from her. “I just... I need you to know that and believe that. No matter what happens. You’re not a consolation prize or a placeholder, you’ve never been. Not to me. And I’m sorry - I’m _so, so_ sorry - that I made you feel like you are.”

“Has anything changed, Lisa?”

Lisa thinks she knows what Jennie is asking. “I have to tell you something,” she starts. 

Jennie raises an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.

“Chaeyoung came by the house yesterday.”

Lisa sees a flicker of hurt in Jennie’s eyes but it’s gone as soon as she sees it, her face quickly turning impassive again, just like what happened earlier in the parking lot.

It’s silent for a few seconds.

Jennie takes a bigger sip of her drink, almost emptying her glass. “Shouldn’t you be with her then? Feeding her apple slices and listening to her write another song about you?” she asks. 

Lisa balks at Jennie’s words. “I - I told you that because you’re my friend,” she sputters. “I didn’t tell you that for you to use it against me.”

Jennie considers her for a moment, frowning. “You’re right, I’m sorry,” she says, looking properly chastised. “God, Seolhyun and Jisoo are right. I really can be a bitch sometimes.”

“Clearly.”

Jennie finishes the rest of her whiskey. “Still, I don’t see how your ex is any of my business. Congratulations, though.”

“We had a fight about her, of course it’s your business. Let’s not kid ourselves,” Lisa huffs. “And we’re not back together,”

“Why not?” Jennie drawls. “Are you afraid of hurting my feelings? Do you want my blessing, is that it?”

“Why are you being so ridiculous?” Lisa asks, frustrated.

“ _I’m_ being ridiculous? What do you want me to do, Lisa? Throw my hat into the ring? Want me and your ex to claw each other’s eyes out? Fight to the death for your affections?” Jennie asks harshly, slamming the now empty glass on the table in front of her. “You want me to make your mind up for you? Get on my knees and beg you to pick me?”

“If that’s what you think of me, then maybe we don’t know each other as much as we think we do,” Lisa says just as harshly, feeling tears prick the corners of her eyes.

Jennie drops her gaze to her lap, her shoulders heavy. Lisa wants to take her in her arms. “You know, I know that if she ever came back in your life, I’d never win,” she mumbles, scratching at her jaw. “I’d never win, Lisa.”

“Win? This isn’t the fucking Olympics, Jennie,” Lisa retorts. “No one is competing.”

“Easy for you to say,” Jennie huffs as stands up. “I’m exhausted, Lisa. I don’t have the energy to argue with you, honestly.”

Lisa stands up as well. “Jennie.”

“I assume you can see yourself out.”

“Don’t do this again,” Lisa pleads, reaching for Jennie’s wrist before she could go and turning her around so they’re facing each other. “Please, don’t do this again.”

Jennie stares at her, her eyes never losing their intensity, before surging forward and kissing her deeply, almost forcefully, almost like she’s trying to imprint herself in Lisa’s mouth, over Lisa’s whole being.

Lisa thinks it’s working.

Jennie pulls away. Lisa chases after her mouth, the taste of whiskey and _Jennie_ making her lose her goddamn mind, but the other girl puts a hand on her chest. “I’m not going to make your mind up for you. I know what I want,” she whispers, her mouth brushing against Lisa’s. The younger girl shivers, breathless and panting. “I hope one day, you figure out what you want too.”

Jennie gives her one last peck on the mouth. “Drive home safe, Lisa,” she says, a glint in her eyes. “Good night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for any errors or typos, this is very unedited. i'll do a quick proofread sometime this week lol.
> 
> this one is so dialogue-heavy i feel like,,,, mdfdsjfh. anyway! thank you for reading and lemme know what you think :)
> 
>  
> 
> y'all are legally obligated to stream d4 btw


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